25.1.23
11.3.21
The Last Pandemic
The Last One of These Lasted 2 and a Half Years?!
"This could last well into May."
Then the Summer of 2020 was over.
Then the Fall of 2020 was over.
" ... stay home, don't gather in areas with lots of people and don't travel long distances to visit with family ... stay home."
But I decided there is a better way of expressing "common and actual facts are available by searching the internet on your own." But you need to be careful. You need to be able to exercise some degree of skill in differentiating fact from fiction. For example: It is a fact that the last time people on this planet experienced anything like this was in the year 1918. Most people called it "The Spanish Flu" although it had other names. But it is *not* a fact that there is a:
" ... disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And there is a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."
(There are some things that just don't sound right when heard or seen. Which apparently has no bearing on whether or not people will believe things like that when they hear them based primarily on who says them.)
Here's a good article from Smithsonian Magazine that compares (and distinguishes differences) between the 1918 pandemic -- that we collectively forgot about that one until this one snuck up on us. Important to note is that "you can't really compare the two." The article explains some of the differences.
As of not too many months ago (is "It's only been a year" an exaggeration?) it didn't seem that anyone had learned a lot since 1918. Although that may not be exactly accurate.
Except for the fact that occasional mentions were made over the past year in the televised (or 'streaming') news programs (ooo! See? I'm 'current' and 'with it'!) and other media outlets like " ... we have not experienced anything like this pandemic since 1918 ... ", some apparently did learn from prior history that to 'wear masks, maintain social distancing, and close the schools' seemed like a good way to prevent the spread of the flu.
While many people alive today may have even learned 'pandemic lessons' from history (by Googling 'Spanish Flu'), it is possible that some may have preferred to sound more current and authoritative by claiming 'According to the CDC ... ' or 'According to Dr. Fauci ...' or 'According to the Johns Hopkins map ...' because nobody wants to claim that they know what they know or think what they think based on something from 1918.
And masks were different back then. I would imagine that it wasn't very easy to get a 'Hello Kitty' mask or a fashion-coordinated mask to go with your various outfit colors. Masks then were made of gauze or other materials even more porous. Who'd wanna wear those?
Also unlike 2020/2021, they couldn't put together vaccinations in record time against the pandemic they experienced in 1918. And the recommended method then to reduce the chances of getting sick pretty much amounted to - like this time around: 'wash your hands and wear a mask'. We're now all looking forward to reaching 'herd immunity' via vaccinations. Well, via vaccinations distributed as widely as possible *after* well over a half million people died in the United States alone since the pandemic began.
Sometimes I wonder if some people last year weren't thinking 'just let it go' and handle it like they did a hundred years ago. "It'll eventually go away after enough people get sick."
In 1918, like now, lots of people didn't like being told what to do by their government either. Just like this time around, some people even thought wearing masks was a bad practice. They held rallies and parties where nobody wore a mask (in a show of defiance of being told what to do) which ended up making the virus spread faster and making more people sicker faster.
One public service announcement from the Red Cross then even went so far as to publicly state: " ... the man or woman or child who will not wear a mask now is a dangerous slacker." I don't think the Red Cross would be allowed to put out a commercial like that nowadays. President Biden said that wearing one is patriotic ... a little different than telling someone they're an idiot because they don't.
That last pandemic lasted 2.5 years. We just hit the 1 year-mark today.
This is why I think so many people now, like those during the last pandemic the world experienced, are so impatient to 'return to normal.' It's inconvenient. They can't work and they're *just wanting to 'go back to work'.* Don't care how. Don't care why. They just know that they can't pay bills so they're just wanting to *just go back to work*. This time, however, because of the internet, there really is going to be 'a new normal.'
We were talking about something entirely different at the time and we laughed. But that sentence may sum up this whole stupid post and explain why we are in the situation we're in.
20.1.21
4.11.19
Survey *says* ...
I'm interested in your opinion:
- Back-pack?
- Wheeled bag (the kind w/a retractable handle)?
- Tote bag?
- Messenger bag?
- Briefcase?
- Purse?
- Just your pockets?
- A bag from someplace you've never shopped (except maybe for one of their bags)?
- Plastic bag from your pharmacy or grocery store?
- Why do you prefer it over the other styles?
- Have you ever used one style and switched to another? Why was that?
- What are your opinion(s) about the other 'methods of carrying' your EDC?
2.11.19
Amazon's Alexa-thing is 5 Years Old, Smarter Than Me, and I Don't Care
I seem to be getting older, too. It's weird.
I'm sorry, some folks might not like that.
To avoid offending anyone, I should rephrase:
"As my chrono-biological advancement process progresses, I have been noticing some uniquely odd moments."
Much better.
I'm concerned about these "odd moments" because it seems as though I am experiencing a more rapidly increasing version of an already rapid process. I'm pretty sure that my internal clock-system-thing is developing a method for itself to capture these moments because it thinks I'm not paying attention. It's catching the odd moments like a cellphone-camera and sending mental image-alerts to smash into my consciousness (the part that I pay attention to, anyway) and say things like "Hey! Knock it off, you're old." This makes it very hard to deny the fact that I am, indeed, "getting older."
I've been pretty good at that -- denying it -- until lately.
So what's the big deal, right? Anybody with half a brain realizes that time doesn't stop and neither does the aging process. While some of us might know how to slow it down, it still doesn't stop (that I know of). And this means that we're all aging whether we bother to notice, or choose to acknowledge it, or to accept it, or not. "Duh," right?
Well, no. It's not that simple. As I mentioned, it's not something everyone likes to acknowledge. Getting older (so some say) sucks. And if we don't acknowledge something, we very likely just think and believe it's not happening. It's a trick. That's how I came to believe that I'm *not* getting old.
It's simple: don't accept it. It's a psychotic, sociopath kinda thing. "I don't see it, so it's not there." However, the longer we put off accepting something like this whole aging thing, the more difficult it will be with when our internal control systems begin to throw these yawping signals in our faces.
I've been keeping a list of these signals when they pop up. Here are fifteen of them:
- Keeping a list of things to keep track of things that make me feel like I'm getting older. Only old people do that.
- I have also been noticing that, on any given day, my temperament is directly related to which pair of shoes I choose to put on in the morning.
- All the Navy Captains and most of the Admirals are younger then I am. When did *that* happen?
- I need to be getting ready for bed by 6pm and preferably horizontal in bed by 7. If I'm not, I feel like I've been shorted on sleep when I wake up.
- I have *never* heard of *any* of the bands, singers, or people in the Top 10 or Top 40 of anything. I have retreated to NetFlix or AmazonPrime streaming stuff on TV and listening almost entirely to music from the 60s and 70s. I don't watch TV anymore. Commercials make me talk back to the TV and only crazy old people talk to the TV.
- Gray hair. I was fortunate enough to not have any until recently ... but now they're sneakin' in.
- Hair (in general) that is showing up where there wasn't any before. Like in my nose. What's up with that? What's next? My *ears?*
- I like it (and sometimes smile) when a cashier asks "May I see some ID?" This may be a new law or just a trending practice in local binnesses (when selling adult beverages), but it's still cool.
- Feeling the need to take naps. I only used to need a nap at the end of the day to rest up for the next day.
- Prices of everything are increasing and it pisses me off. I'm almost certain there's a collective conspiracy by all of the companies and corporations to raise their prices faster than my annual income increases. If prices are increasing, so should my paycheck, dammit.
- It *really* pisses me off when they move stuff in the supermarket or pharmacy in some misguided attempt to make you see *other* stuff that you won't be buying anyway. It's dumb.
- I catch myself telling other people how old I am (like I am now). I recently realized that the only other people who do that a lot are 4-year-olds.
- I hear a growing number of people talking about how old *they* are and then fondly remembering things from the 80s like 'Disco,' 'Donna Summer,' and other stuff that I didn't like back then, either.
- More and more friends, family members, and celebs are dying. And they're younger than me.
- And lastly, at least for now anyway, I am oh so very tired of being told (by anyone and everyone everywhere) who to admire and who to look up to. People to look up to and respect as role models are hard to find and I kind of look at it like an Easter Egg Hunt.
And I like finding the Golden Eggs by myself. There are too many yolks in the world.