social media

Apple Sucks

/ dereid99 / Leave a comment

“De phone, de phone has arrived.”  The fruit company announces. We leave early, thinking maybe grab some lunch and then a movie after I pick up my new phone. I bought it online the night before, so all I have to do is walk in and pick it up. I get to the fruit store and say, “I know I’m early, but can I grab my phone?” As I open the email and actually read the stupid thing, I notice at the bottom: “Please bring photo ID.” Well, shiver me timbers. I didn’t read the whole email, surprise, surprise. Now, in my defence it was about the twentieth email they sent me. “Shit,” I say to the nice fruit representative, “I have a photo of my ID on my old fruit phone.  Nope. Government ID only, sorry,” she says with a half-jerked smile. Yep gotta watch tiny retail people with a little bit of power and a rule. They will shit all over you and who wouldn’t when your wage doesn’t cover rent.

I phone my car passenger and explain the situation. I walk with the pace of an Olympian to the car.  Then Mr. Impatient gets a golden idea, “Well. I can probably drive home, grab my wallet and be back before my passenger even gets down the stairs to the underground parking.” You sad sorry moron. When will you learn? I get in the car, fly out of the garage and zoom down the causeway.  I get a call, “Hey where are you?” “Yea, sorry I’m halfway home. Meet me at the fruit store in twenty.”  The line dies. I can feel the  sardonic smirk down the highway between us. I get half-way home when I remember, I don’t have my keys, so I can’t get into the house without throwing the barbeque through the window.

I call back, but before I even speak, “You don’t have your keys, numbskull. You gave them to me this morning. Remember? I don’t want the pocket bulge you said. ” “That’s right, I say.” Passenger says,  “Ok, meet me in front of the drugstore. No better yet, meet me in in front of the bank.” “Ok,” I say, but am I really listening? I get to the drug store. I call. “Where are you?” “In front of the bank like I told you.” “Oh shit.” I scoot around the drug store and drive over to the bank. I see the passenger’s  head, shaking with disgust and then while sliding into the car, “Do you want me to drive? You seem a little tense.”

We drive home, get my wallet, and go back into the phone store. I gingerly put my Government ID on the counter. We wait. Dude tries to sell me shit I don’t need. Thanks. I walk out of the store new phone in pocket, bulging like square fruit in a round tree.

I go home. So many passwords to renew and new fruit wants to use my face for ID. Nah, Apple doesn’t suck – you do.

The pot is boiling and overflowing

/ dereid99 / Leave a comment

Pot Boiling Over On Home Stove - Time Lapse Stock Footage ...Here we go more flippin’ insanity. David Amess out for a nice afternoon with his constituents in a church of all places is stabbed and killed. Murdered because he was a politician. The nefarious act also brought back the horrible death of Jo Cox another MP murdered for her views on Brexit in 2016 (not to mention the fifty journalists killed in 2020) . What the hell?

Our politicians and journalists are icons for the preservation and enhancement democracy no matter what political colours they fly, but how safe are they? Out for a walk and boom.  Where did  our sense of decency, compromise and respect go? We live in a society where the discussion of ideas is good for everyone, right? Maybe we’ve always hated diverse values. Blue caveman hits orange caveman over the head because he used too much flint (or the sacred flint).  What? Can’t we have opposing political or religious beliefs anymore? Are we still living in caves, without Starbucks for millennia?

Perhaps the biggest loss in these assaults is the attack on our future. Who in their right mind is going to hold political office with a literal gun to the back of their head?  So much for bright youthful ideas and people running across the political stage with hope and enthusiasm. “Hey young fella, you wanna be in government?” “Are you nuts? ” Say hello to the same old white guys running government with a pack of secret service guys running behind them in cheap black suits. What happens when the old white guys move or pass on? We certainly won’t get the best and brightest young minds.

What is the cause of this horror? Hello unregulated social media. The only interest these guys have is money. Hey you want to get your anger out? Excellent, I have a place just for you. Join a group on a platform where you can vent your anger. Get a few more to join.  The platform doesn’t care about any misinformation ravaging  these groups like cancer nor do we give a shit about the fallout. We love it because more anger means more people joining these radical groups and that spells PROFIT. We need money. Our corporation can’t possibly exist on eighty-five billion dollars a year. My goodness, anything under sixty billion is like poverty. How can I possibly orbit the earth in my billion dollar space vehicle if I don’t have an astronomical cash flow?

On the positive side,  this may result in good. If the senseless loss of life gets people screaming and if enough people get pissed off at these money gouging enterprises, something will get done. It’s time to shout until our lungs burst.

The pot is boiling

/ dereid99 / Leave a comment

Rotational Axis of Planet Earth May Shift If More People ...I don’t know what is going on with the world. Craziness is running rampant.  This dangerous insanity has crossed my path a few times. It’s not only local lunacy, but, every time I turn on the television some person is yelling, punching  and/or scaring the shit out of people. The world is spinning off its axis and I’m close to jumping off.

Over the past eighteen months I’ve had a couple of scary run ins with very very angry males. In one case a guy driving a Prius with California plates literally chased me across a park threatening to “take me out,” all because I said, “In this country we stop for pedestrians” (I’m really tired of people speeding through our child infested neighbourhood). Hindsight, walk away no matter how many kids get hurt.

In another case as I was carefully driving through a construction zone when some dude started frantically honking and pounding on his steering wheel behind me, smoke billowing from every orifice on his body (late for work?).   I flipped him the bird (yes, big mistake in hindsight), after which he tried to run me off the road. This dude was so angry he followed me to a highway some twenty minutes from the initial incident where he tried to run me off the road on a very busy highway.

I was pretty shaken up after the altercations and I have to say I’m not totally innocent in either situation, but these two guys really took anger to another level. The reasons why these two totally lost it are numerous – mental health issues, not taking medication (my first thought) or they could’ve just lost their jobs or relationships, not uncommon in our economically unstable times.

However now that I have time to reflect, I’m thinking, “What is going on with the world?” It’s just not the two anger ridden dudes I’ve run across, it’s people throwing rocks at our Prime Minister on the campaign trail. People screaming and yelling at people working in retail stores. It’s this whole vein of anger and hostility that’s running through  society. It was never like this (or maybe we never heard about it).

What are the causes? Is social media setting people on fire? These horrible media groups divide society into groups that refuse to find any common ground.  Is the loss of our manners and respect for others because we hunt people down on social media (troll), scream and yell at them because they can hide behind a computer screen? Keyboard anger spilling out into the streets of driving and shopping.

Or is it about COVID where people are tired, frustrated and angry because they have to stay inside ?  Are groups tired because the government keeps telling people what to do – don’t go here, wear a mask, get vaccinated?  It doesn’t matter what the government says, I won’t do it, some protest. To make the problem worse we have government restrictions that have  flip flopped more times than a pancake during a rodeo breakfast.

We are on a very dangerous course and I don’t see how it will change. The right and the left are dug in so deep, you can only see the tops of their heads in the sand. The pot is starting to boil and soon it’ll start overflowing with very scalding results.  As for my part, I must get my “Zen” on and as hard as it is to  temper myself, I will follow Michelle and, “Take the high road.” Or maybe it’s time to get out of the city and escape to the country.