okay, so not “phenomenally”, but still stupid

i am cautiously confident that my phenomally stupid actions over last weekend have not attracted the attention of law enforcement, but they definitely have, 100% guaranteed attracted the attention of fraud-meisters on twitter, who have been bombarding me with DM requests advertising various different — illegal — substances for sale… 😒

needless to say, i have not become their sucker. as they say, once bitten, twice shy. 🤬 which is to say that, every chance i get, i have been interjecting myself into @psychedelicbloc’s advertisements with an inquiry about when they’re going to refund my money. i don’t expect them to actually refund anything, but if i convince even one person to be cautious enough to avoid this guy, it will be worth it. 😒

on the other hand, this afternoon, i actually had a face-to-face talk with a good friend who is interested — and knowledgable — concerning psychedelic mushroom growing, who is currently in communication with a medical doctor(!) neighbour of his, who can get reliable spores and knows about the correct mediums in which to grow them… but neither of them have a place to grow… so i may, actually, have found myself the most reliable supplier of psychedelics possible, which is myself… 😇

okay, i may have done something PHENOMENALLY stupid

i bought 10 grams of cubensis over twitter.

this person @psychedelicbloc, otherwise known as Psychedelic home, is not somebody i know. his (her?) profile, and paypal indicate that they’re in colorado, but i don’t know this person. their twitter profile is a few months old. they’re shipping to me using a company i have never heard of before, “Mega Cargo Logistics” which hasn’t been updating their web site as often as i’d like…

mushrooms from @psychedelicbloc
mushrooms from @psychedelicbloc
  • i don’t know this person
  • i don’t know whether or not they truly know what they’re doing
  • i don’t know whether or not they’re going to send me truly psychedelic mushrooms, or poisonous mushrooms, or “inert” mushrooms, or NOTHING AT ALL
  • i don’t know whether or not the cops are going to be waiting for me when i pick them up

moe isn’t home, and i was feeling desperate… and this guy blatantly advertised on twitter, which is already a very shady sign…

so, if i get busted, it’s @psychedelicbloc’s fault.

200120 MegaCargoLogistics email
200120 MegaCargoLogistics email
ETA: 200120 okay, i knew it had to be too good to be true. the shipping company i’ve never heard of before, Mega Cargo Logistics, sent me a very poorly worded (like, the author’s native language is very definitely NOT english) email, with the entire message in the subject line, informing me that my package was “on hold” until i paid a “refundable $100 insurance” fee.

in bitcoin… 😒

@psychedelicbloc said “bro… you’ve got nothing to worry about.” and “bro… i assure you the insurance will be refundable to as you receive your package.” — but when i responded that i simply didn’t have any more money, he recommended that i “can do the agency web mail and chat with them so the can explain things more better to you.” SO, i went on their web chat, and they told me “sir, the insurance you are about to pay is refundable as you receive your package. And which of the payment method are you okay with.” when i responded that i didn’t have the money, they said “Sir we understand that this is too much on you but as you receive your package the insurance will be refundable to you”, at which point i said “if i had known about the extra $100 charge for insurance, i would not have made the order, because I DO NOT HAVE THAT MUCH MONEY… PERIOD.” whereupon their response was “Sir we have many clients to attend to and of you are not serious please wasting our time here”

so, i’m not getting mushrooms. 🤬

although, all things considered, it’s probably just as well…

and, when i asked @psychedelicbloc to refund my money, they, too, started spouting stuff that makes it sound VERY MUCH like their native language is not english — “i need to apply for the to refund the package back to me if the do do i will refund your package” — which makes me think that, since paypal says they won’t actually receive the funds until the 23rd, i might actually be able to file a dispute with them, so that they won’t get it… and when i suggested i file a dispute, @psychedelicbloc suddenly vanished…

which makes me doubtful that they’re a cop… but at the same time, i don’t know whether or not i’m actually going to see that $100 again…

moisture, but no festival

as i mentioned last week, our bedroom closet has inordinate amounts of moisture in the back, where nobody noticed it for a long time… like, years

we had a contractor out, who took the entire south wall of the house apart, and concluded that it was a combination culprit: we had

1) water leaking in through the nail-holes in the composite siding, which was sub-standard (having been built in the early 1970s).

2) water leaking in through a sub-standard (1970s construction) gap in the siding between the rectangular part of the house, and the triangular (roof) part — these days, they put in what they call “Z-flashing” between the two levels of siding. in the 1970s, not so much.

3) no house-wrap — once again, due to 1970s construction methods and the fact that tyvek hadn’t even been invented yet — but a layer of plain old plastic, which caused water to condense and run down the inside of the walls.

and, because of this, there is also the matter of

4) the “rim joist” — the 2″x6″ beam that runs under the floorboards and holds the whole house up — was the ultimate victim of all of this aforementioned water. it was rotten through, and the guy had to jack up the house to remove it.

end result: the entire south wall of the house has been wrecked and removed down to the studs, and the south end of the house has been jacked up.

what makes it worse is that we discovered this on the 9th, and it has rained, snowed, or some combination of the two, pretty much every day since. it’s warm enough that the snow hasn’t hung around for long, but it affects how much the guy wants to work…

not only that, but now that he’s got the wall in a more-or-less stable (i.e. no longer damp and rotting) condition, he’s got court-ordered visitation with his kids this weekend, so not only is moe gone, and i have to take care of the dogs on my own, but ALSO there’s the detritus of an ongoing construction project in the front yard, the entire south wall is covered in plastic, and the crawl-space (where the dogs ARE NOT ALLOWED TO GO) is open and unguarded, AND the guy WON’T BE BACK TO FIX IT UNTIL MONDAY!!! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🖕

🤬

🖕

moisture + anhedonia

now there’s 18 and possibly 19 shares: Peanut Envy is going to be fluffing at least one night, and there’s a rumour that Snake Suspenders — as a trio, or, possibly with a fill-in drummer — is going to get at least one stage slot.

and, i never, in a million years, thought i would be able to say this, but i have been, essentially, commanded to take mushrooms, by what passes for a doctor in my life these days… except for the fact that it’s been snowy for the past couple of days, and more rain is forcast; my house is falling apart — currently everything that is usually in the closet in the master bedroom, is in the living room, while the closet is gutted down to the studs and rebuilt, to get rid of the mold and moisture problems; and, friday, moe is scheduled to leave for (ETA: 200117 – denver) orlando (or some gawdawful place like that) and won’t be back until wednesday.

which means that, taking my thursday unicycle class into account, it’s entirely likely that a week from friday is going to be the first day that i have to take mushrooms. 😒

moisture

2020, officially, 17 shares for the phil, plus whatever shares i get for fluffing…

we’re FINALLY getting the second week, instead of some other band…

and they still haven’t decided that ettinger’s band is just going to do all four weeks, which indicates that there’s still someone with their head screwed on straight who’s in charge, although who knows who that person(s) might be…

we’ll see what it all shakes out to once it’s over.

  • 2019, 13 shares, $520 – $40 per share
  • 2018, 11 shares, $330 – $30 per share
  • 2017, ?? shares, $480
  • 2016, 15 shares, $600 – $45 per share
  • 2015,
  • 2014,
  • 2013, 14 shares, $490 – $35 per share
  • 2012, 16 shares, $720 – $45 per share
  • 2011, 14 shares…
  • 2010, 13 shares, $520 — $27 a share
  • 2007, ?? shares, $820
  • 2006, ?? shares, $790

anhedonia… 😒

i’ve been “sick” for a week. i was actually SICK for two days, starting last thursday. friday i didn’t make it upright, except to vomit, but by saturday i was feeling well enough that i did the last weekend of the panto without too much difficulty. monique got sick on sunday, and she and i have been trading a low-level “sickness” back and forth ever since. one of monique’s co-workers got an especially virulent strain of pink-eye a couple days ago, so the probability is better than normal that all of the rest of us are going to get pink-eye eventually.

#drumpf assassinated the number three guy in iran, with no “approval” or prior warning, a couple days ago, which, once again, brings us to the brink of world war three. he’s been impeached, but not convicted of anything, and probably won’t be, because the body which is supposed to convict him is controlled by the republican’ts, all of whom think he’s doing a swell job. 😒 55% of americans think his actions put american lives in danger, but he’s using it as a campaign talking point, and there’s a good chance, at this point, that he will be re-“elected” for a second term. 😠👎

and that’s not to mention the millions of people who no longer have insurance, nor the disabled people (which includes me) who will no longer have SSDI when his schemes take effect… he’s asked for, and gotten more money for his wall, and even more money for “defense”, but we “don’t have enough money” for health care and education.

meanwhile, the wall in the back of our closet has sprung a leak, which means that a lot of our “formal” and “costume” clothes are now wet — possibly ruined — and we’ve had a contractor out to give us an estimate (and another one tomorrow, alledgedly), but it has been snowing, on and off, since last night, which means that whatever repairs HAVE TO BE made, will PROBABLY NOT be made until… i don’t know, spring, or some time… 😒

i’m sick.

i’m sick of life. 😒

i wish it would end. 👎

🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬‼

ever since he was born, i have been afraid that i will be forced into the situation where i have to apologise to my son for bringing him into a world that, through no fault of his own, is going to end, for all intents and purposes, before his life will end. to me, it seems a large amount of irresponsible, to have brought a being into the world, who is faced with his own death, before his time, especially since i seem to be charmed when it comes to the potential of my life ending before my time.

and it’s even harder for me, because i have been fighting my entire adult life to change the things that i can, that would lead to my not having to offer that apology.

ezra, i’m sorry that the world is such a fucked up place. i’m sorry i brought you into this world, with no way to change it. i’m sorry you have to share this world with people who don’t care that it will end before your lifetime is complete.

A Grim New Definition of Generation X
by Ted Rall – 191231

People born in the 1960s may be the last human beings who will get to live out their full actuarial life expectancies. “Climate change now represents a near- to mid-term existential threat” to humanity, warns a recent policy paper by an Australian think tank. Civilization, scientists say, could collapse by 2050. Some people may survive. Not many.

Some dismiss such purveyors of apocalyptic prognoses as hysterics. To the contrary, they’re Pollyannas. Every previous “worst-case scenario” prediction for the climate has turned out to have understated the gravity of the situation. “Paleoclimatologists have shown that past warming episodes show that there are mechanisms which magnify its effects, not represented in current climate models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the Paris Accords,” reports The Independent. It’s probably too optimistic to assume that we’ll make it to 2050.

Gives new meaning to Generation X.

Millennials and the children we call Generation Z face the horrifying prospect that they will get stuck with the tab for humanity’s centuries-long rape of planet earth, the mass desecration of which radically accelerated after 1950. There is an intolerably high chance that today’s young people will starve to death, die of thirst, be killed by a superstorm, succumb to a new disease, boil to death, asphyxiate from air pollution, be murdered in a riot or shot or blown up in a war sparked by environmentally-related political instability long before they survive to old age.

Long threatened, never taken seriously, not even now that it’s staring us right in the face, human extinction is coming for the children and grandchildren we claim to love but won’t lift a finger to save.

Shelves sag under the weight of books that have been written arguing that we still have a chance to save ourselves. I wish I could believe that. Human population has tripled since the 1950s. More than a million species have gone extinct. Ninety percent of the fish in the ocean have vanished, replaced by one billion tons of plastic. Two-thirds of the trees have been cut down. The polar ice cap is gone; it’s never coming back.

We can’t stop global warming. An increase of four degrees Celsius over the baseline set at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution means game over. We’re well on our way there. It doesn’t make sense to think that we can avoid extinction.

What if we woke up and demanded action from our political leaders? Radical problems require radical solutions; only the most radical of solutions could resolve the most radical problem of ruining our planet’s ability to sustain us: revolution. We would have to rise up and abolish — immediately — consumer capitalism in all the major greenhouse gas-producing nations, prioritize cleaning the environment as the human race’s top concern, and pivot to an economic mindset in which we extract the bare minimum from the ecosystem that we need in order to survive and nothing more.

Voting might achieve some incremental reforms but reform falls far short of what we require. Saving our young people (and their children, should they be foolish enough to have any) would require global revolution, the violent overthrow of the ruling elites and replacing them with people who understand what must be done. It would need to happen today. Fifty years ago would be better. Got a time machine?

None of this is going to happen. We are going to sleepwalk to our doom in a haze of social media and corporate entertainment distraction.

So it’s time for people who are younger than I am to start thinking about how they want to spend the rest of their likely-to-be-truncated lives, and how they plan to face mass premature death.

Pending human extinction destroys the answers provided by religion and philosophy. Knowing that there won’t be anyone to know that we were ever here raises the question: why bother to do anything? This column, this year’s “important” presidential election, love, hate, everything will lose its meaning when the last member of our species draws her last breath. Earth is unlikely to be visited by an alien archaeologist, much less uncover everything we’ve made and created (assuming any of it survives), much less figure out what any of it meant, before the sun expands into a red giant and ends it all.

Much is to be said for hedonism: eat, drink, have sex, and don’t bother to sort your recycling, for tomorrow we die. Stoicism has its advantages too; go out with dignity rather than weeping and gnashing your teeth and making your fellow survivors miserable.

Nihilism is about to become the best worst possible life strategy. Life is meaningless. That will soon become obvious. Moral principles, relics of a time with a future, will blow away like the irradiated dust we leave behind.

None of this will have mattered.