...By Then The Entire Glee Club Had Died

Early bird, worm, and all that.

Called the Social Security Administration to set up an appointment to get The Boy enrolled in Medicare promptly at 0800 EDT.

When I told the robot what I wanted, it (female voice) told me the phone number for Medicare and stopped doing anything but repeating that number. 

Call Medicare and their robot, male voice this time, keeps asking me for The Boy's Medicare number.  It, helpfully, informs me that I can find this number on the red-white-and-blue Medicare card I don't have because The Boy is not yet enrolled.

After doing this loop for a bit, Live Person® gets on the line and says I should call SSA.

DEEP MEANINGFUL SIGH

Call SSA with the same number as before and tell the fembot the exact same thing as before, but (somehow) this time it works and I get Live Person®!

She asks questions, I answer them.  She gets the account information up and informs me that I cannot do anything because everything is set up for Harvey to administer.

Luckily, she's right there to step in!

They ask her a barrage of questions and she answers.

NOW I can talk to them about the account and getting him signed up.

Live Person® tells me he's not enrolled and isn't automatically enrolled because he's on SSI instead of SSDI.  Well, he was supposed to be...

Now I have a phone appointment for tomorrow afternoon to set things up correctly. 

Sealed For Your Protection

This two-factor authentication bullshit is bullshit.

We're trying to get The Boy's Medicare started.  He's been on SSI well past the requisite period.

"Just log in!" everyone says.

How?

Apparently we already had a login.gov account made for him, but we're damned if we can figure out the authentication app for it so the code they're sending as the second factor is disappearing into the aether.

We don't remember setting up any authentication apps.  For all I know you have to have your app downloaded and ready to go and almost anything will convince the setup daemon you're good to go... and it sends the code to the account you didn't realize you'd specified and didn't have ready because they don't really explain the process when they tell you all you need is their name, SSN, place of birth and Medicaid number to get it all done.

They cheerfully explain that you can delete the account and start over if you've lost access to the authentication app.

We might just have to do that.

I'm going to try calling the phone number to make an appointment and see if we can't get this done in person.  Joy!

That'll be another fight with Harvey.  I don't know everything and the information is not kept so that I can find or use it.

Message For YouTubers

Tell me what you're going to say.

Say it.

Tell me what you just said.

That's normal, everyday, stuff we've seemed to have lost.

Yes, this is do as I say, not as I do because I'm not placing myself as someone who's trying to keep my readers informed.

But over and over the people who are trying to place themselves as information sources keep forgetting to tell me why they're explaining something for such a long time that I can't tell what their point is.

And if YouTube inserts an ad into your explanation before you reach that point, I'm stabbing the back button.

Let us also be honest.

The reason you're rambling like you are is to make the video long enough that the algorithm moves it up past the point where you get paid for putting it up there.

But cramming a few seconds of content into several minutes of video just means most of the video could be skipped and after a few of them, I know that's how you work and I will seek other sources for information on the topic.

Clues that your youtuber will waste your time:

Recites their resume and lists their awards at the beginning of every video.

Explains why you'd be watching a how-to video about how-to repair something.

Begins by answering a question not yet stated. 

Customer Appreciation Day

My favorite local brewery does a customer appreciation day over Labor Day weekend every year.

They grill burgers and hot dogs and give them out for free.

Something that stands out is how many new faces I see there.

The customers bring their extended families for free grub...

But they're not the worst.  You can make the case that they appreciate the family letting their customer come to the brewery.

The worst are the people, families in tow, who have never patronized the place. 

It ticks me off.

I like the owners of the brewery and I don't like seeing these people take advantage of them. 

Fingered

FuzzyGeff put his finger on why the virtue signalling in the new edition of GURPS rubs so wrong.

They really think we needed it explained that slavery was wrong.

Condescending is the word, I believe.

They're acting like they're a guiding moral compass, but they're a fucking toy company. 

Conceited

Something I noticed that's made it hard for me to watch some CarTube channels is the obvious wealth of the presenter.

Their being richer isn't the problem.

It's the conceit that they're experiencing the same problems I would have in getting the money together for the project while they casually mention dropping thousands on it.

Additionally the "old friend" from the car rags days has returned.  Parts donated by a vendor and deals I won't get because a seller isn't trying to get ME to mention them on my channel.

So, no, will not be taking my $100k F350 and $20k enclosed car trailer to pick up a $3,500 car with a seized engine.

I will not be finding a 6.2l aluminum LS engine, that already has a Summit stage 4 cam, laying around for less than $5k.  I will not be handed a $5k exhaust system.  I will not be spending the day getting my car dyno-tuned, a $1,500 to $3,000 value.

But most of all, I will not be doing it in my forty-thousand square foot shop with 8 two-post lifts.

Because of all that, it rubs me wrong when they start complaining about how much a fucking water pump would cost.  I might, by necessity, need to skip the $200 water pump if I needed to get my car back on the road after an engine swap.

But I also don't brag about "being under ten grand" on a project that has, at least, another $10k in parts donated to it.

Your project is $25 grand to the rest of us and I can't pretend otherwise.

My suspension of disbelief is no longer willing. 

Oh My God

Linky

During a routine inspection in 2026, museum staff uncovered a shocking secret hidden inside a WWII Panzer III tank that had gone unnoticed for more than 80 years. Beneath an internal floor panel was a 7.92×57mm Mauser round, the same ammunition used by the German MG 34 machine gun mounted on the legendary armored vehicle. The discovery stunned experts because the aging bullet was potentially dangerous and had to be carefully deactivated before being added to the collection. This rare Panzer III, one of only two surviving examples still running, carries a mysterious history dating back to the North African campaign and the Battle of Alam el Halfa in 1942.

So, a live round was rolling around under the floorboards for 84 years, and the lack of men in the UK caused a panic?

Potentially dangerous?

Maybe if you tried to swallow it.  It's not like it's an HE round where the explosive's stabilizers have been slowly breaking down leaving something behind that makes nitroglycerine seem easy to juggle.

I love the line about carefully deactivating it.

In America a quick poll would have been taken among the workers to see who had a 98k and they'd have shot that round to see how badly the powder had degraded. 

"Historian Ian Hudson said he could not definitely say the round was a wartime artefact but “it’s certainly very likely”." 

Are you fucking shitting me, Ian?

A fucking historian doesn't know to look at the headstamp?

I am ever more convinced that we should have helped the Germans in 1918. 

Obstructive Facilitation

There's a ticket processor called EventBrite.

Nominally, they facilitate the purchase of a ticket for an event for small and local venues so that the small, local, venue doesn't have to deal with the headache themselves.

It's a win for everyone, in theory.

What's that line?

In theory, practice and theory are the same.  In practice they're not.

The first problem has been fee creep.  They, like TicketMaster, are asking for a larger and larger portion of the total price of the ticket.

Then their web page has become increasingly difficult to navigate.

This is to motivate you to download their app so they can better harvest your personal information to sell.

When every link to your tickets is interrupted with, "download the app!" and you never actually get to the ticket download...

Then, suddenly, it works fine.

I didn't do anything differently, it's like they give up and let it work like it's supposed to work after you do the loop a specific number of tries. 

1488? REALLY?!?

Is the inbred group of voters at WorldCon culturally appropriating Nazis with this 1488 shit?

 I've noticed that I have not read a Hugo award winner in a very long time.

I was half paying attention during the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies era and noticed that the point of the Hugo stopped being excellence in story telling but excellence in checking the progressive, minority, disability, LGBTQ boxes by the author regardless of the quality of the work.

Especially when there were Sad Puppy supporters saying things like, "I despise the author personally, but they wrote a really good story and should get your nomination and vote." 

I stopped reading at least one webcomic over the Hugo controversies.

Something this video made me notice is how similar the language is of the WorldCon nominating committee and Steve Jackson Games discussing inclusion with the upcoming GURPS 4eR.

Which makes me want to ask Sean Punch, "Are you actively happy with the Hugo Award?"

I think the answer matters because when we filter based on the attributes of the author and not the quality of the work, we will not be getting the highest quality work. 

There's No Reason It's Just Our Policy

In Florida, a "permanent" handicapped parking permit is good for three years.  This requires your doctor to fill out the paperwork every three years to renew your "permanent" permit.

If your placard is lost or destroyed, you need the same paperwork from your doctor to get a permit that expires on the same date as the lost or destroyed one.

They cite abuse of the system by people who aren't handicapped as the reason for making the honest people jump through additional hoops.

I am getting sick of this paradigm.

I think the people who should be most affected by laws are the people breaking them and not additional burdens on the law abiding.

How's this one for size:  Unlawful use of a handicapped permit results in loss of license for 10 years and seizure of the vehicle used.  Forfeit of said vehicle if the owner used the permit illegally.  Hefty fine for the owner to recover their vehicle if they loaned it to the violator.

I want deterrence, by the gods! 

Still Here

Apparently, the national company that's buying Noxious hires a handy, local, towing company to come seal the deal.

Also, apparently, they don't bother to check to see if that local towing company will be open during the promised pickup time.

So I sat here waiting between 3 and 8 pm for them when they closed at 5.

I'm betting they didn't even know they were supposed to come get the car.

I guess we'll see tomorrow.

Urf Ower

Tonight, from 8:30 to 9:30 PM local time you are supposed to shut off everything to show your support for...

Living like a rutting caveman or something.

Bollocks to that!

I'm putting a space heater to blow on my air conditioner's thermostat with all the lights on and all four cars idling in the driveway. 

Duke Power sent me a thank-you card last year for my efforts! 

Double Carbine

First: The M7 is not a rifle, it's a carbine.  It's in the same series as the M1 and M4 carbines.

I have long giggled about the M1 carbine not actually being a carbine because a carbine is traditionally a shorter version of a rifle.

The M1 Carbine isn't a shorter version of anything.

I noticed, and mentioned, that the M4 was a real carbine because it was a short M16.

The M7 isn't a shorter anything and I don't know where on the rifle list it should come out if you wanted to call a 13.5" barreled gun a rifle.  M111 since there's a Knight's Armament M110?  Higher?  Dunno.

That makes this really funny is the M7 has finally had troop and field trials in the form of issuing them to the 101st Airborne.

They felt it was too heavy and too long.

So SIG is lopping 2" off the barrel and ditching the folding stock give us the XM8 Carbine (no relation).

A carbine version of a carbine.

Spring Forward

Today the government steals an hour from us in a vain attempt to "save daylight."

Shifting the sun an hour today doesn't really change the overall day all that much come summer, and by the solstice it really wouldn't matter.

We should just stay on standard time, I think.

I Feel Dirty

Everyone links to X.

I loathe the default white text on black background because of my astigmatism.

If you make an account you can change that to white background and black text!

I now have an X account. 

No I Think Not

I went to vote for the Gundie Awards and encountered a problem:

To vote you have to accept their spam.

Fuck that.

I already delete about 200 emails from places I've done business with already and I don't want more.

Never mind the idea that there's terms and conditions to an internet popularity contest that's binding on the voters.  Even more "fun" is the terms and conditions has links to the subsections with their own terms and conditions.  You have to click to three levels on one to get the whole thing you're agreeing to.

I Said That Already

I just spent half an hour typing out a story about how I stopped being friends with a particular group.

Then realized that I'd already mentioned them moving my pistol from the agreed upon storage place to a place I didn't know.

Already posted about being invited only to show another member they could be replaced.

I think I forgot the pizza fiasco.

The normal breakdown was everyone kicked in X for an equal portion of a pizza.  It worked out to two slices each.

But, being allergic to mushrooms, I couldn't have a slice from the deluxe they always ordered.  Gods forbid they skip the mushrooms for me!

So I asked if I could skip the share and just pay for my own pizza.

No problem they said.

Then they proceeded to take one slice each from both pies.

I'm like, "hey! gimme back my pizza!" and they were all "but we share around here."

You paid for half and there's two half pizzas left, why are you complaining?

Because I can't eat half of what's left and you eating MY pizza wasn't part of the fucking deal!

I am somewhat amused in hindsight that they kept betraying my trust and kept acting like I couldn't be trusted. 

Trying To Figure It Out

California is banning Glocks because they're too easy to convert to full-auto.

California is blaming Glock for this.

This has me thinking.

Is there another product where the end-user modifies it and the manufacturer is responsible for the, illegal, modification?

I don't recall Ford, Chevy, GMC or Ram being implicated in the diesel tuner stuff.  Just the tuners, the companies who made the tuning software and, in some cases, the owners of the trucks.

I've seen people get in trouble for removing the catalytic converters, but never seen the automakers get busted.

I've seen people get in trouble for aftermarket lighting and never seen the automaker get even chided.

Have Apple or Microsoft been subpoenaed because their operating systems do nothing to stop child pornography?

Once again, it's guns, it's different.

A Proposal

When they catch the Charlie Kirk killer, don't show their picture, don't release their name, don't publish their manifesto...

Don't give them a moment of fame for this.

I'd say to call them "Some Asshole" but some people revel in that.

How about Chickenshit.

In it's original 1940's meaning.

Without value, worthless, nonredeemable.

"A Chickenshit was arrested in connection with the murder of Charlie Kirk," is sufficient.

If there are more than one, just apply a Roman numeral to the end.

If they start spewing their manifesto quote them as, "Chickenshit II babbled incoherently, as if what they had to say mattered in the slightest as they were taken into custody."

What they have to say, now, doesn't matter.  They chose violence over words and have abdicated having their side of the conversation being heard. 

Disheartening

Going through the Gunbroker ads/auctions for a Glock 17 Gen 1 Classic.

First pass is trying to find the least extra charges.

It's bad enough that I have to pay the 7.5% sales taxes, I don't wanna pay 3% credit card or 2% insurance fees too.

Then I don't want to pay an excessive amount for shipping.

Then I need to make sure that the seller is an FFL because the two closest FFLs that deal in transfers don't accept guns from unwashed gutter people (even as they happily take our money to do transfers!)

Once this list is assembled, I read the feedback.

I start with the negative, because how a seller handles the things that go wrong is a far better indicator of their character than when things go perfect.

The list is down to zero sellers right quick. 

On one hand, I've checked the feedback after buying something from Gunbroker and didn't encounter what all of the people posting negatively had happen to them.  Stuff that probably would have sent me elsewhere had I looked first instead of after...

Life is full of risks!