Monthly Archives: September 2020

aparajita, HPOI

Ă,-PĂ,-RĀ’-JĬ,-TĂ,

part of what i am worried about is the ISF, which nobody told me about last time, which resulted in my having to pay a $400 fine for “importing without filing an ISF”… but, apparently, the ISF is only needed for ocean cargo… and, if it is needed for air freight, nobody has told me about it yet… but nobody told me about having a “broker” or a “continuous bond” last time, either, and i ended up having to get one at the last minute, at extra, added expense…

but, i paid the money this morning… i initiated an international wire transfer to india, so they’ve got my money, now, and if they don’t actually send me incese, at this point, i will be extremely pissed off.

aparajita, HPOI

aparajita! 👍

the latest is that i send them $1,000 and they send me 48 dozen boxes of aparajita, by air freight.

i have to wait until tomorrow to wire them the money. i tried today, but international money transfers have to be done on the same day, and, apparently, that day ends at 1300 hours, PDT, so i have to try again tomorrow.

this appears to be A LOT easier than the HPOI that i ordered two years ago… and a lot less expensive… but i seem to recall that a lot of the charges the last time around were ones that were added on by freight companies, intermediaries, and the federal government, so it’s not over yet. 😒

incense of the month club

incense of the month club

this is the basic layout, so far:

people sign up in one of three two ways, either:

1) they pay $10, and get however many sticks of whatever the incense of the month is, that month. they can do this for as long as they like, up to $120, or 12 months. they don’t get anything extra.

not this… the “Incense Of The Month Club” is a subscription service. if people don’t want to “subscribe”, they can’t be a part of it.

also, it will make it SO much easier determining who gets what

21) they can pay $100 lump sum, all at once, for a “mundane” account, and get 12 months of however many sticks of whatever the incense of the month is, that month. that’s $10 a month, with 2 months free. they don’t get anything extra, but they do get 2 months free (woo hoo! free! 😒). this decreases in price by $10 a month, so in february, it costs $90, in march, it costs $80, in april, it costs $70, and so forth, until it costs $10 at which point it sticks at $10 and they can go month-to-month with the level 1 people. they get the first two months free, and after that, the price goes down $10 a month. basically, people who sign up in january get two months free, people who sign up in february get one month free, and after that, they pay $10 a month until december.

32) they can pay $8.50 a month, $102 total, lump sum, all at once, for a “VIP account”. they actually pay less per month, but, because of the fact that they’re actually paying more, overall, as well as getting however many sticks of whatever the incense of the month is, that month, they also get 🎉🎊EXTRA GOODIES🎊🎉, such as buttons, OM stuff, stickers, little good luck charms, random incense, and other bizarre stuff i have lying around. this offer is good for the first 3 months, and then it vanishes, leaving level 1 or level 2 for those people who want to sign up late, and as a motivation to sign up earlier.

i have 22 “limited edition, vintage” incenses, in packages ranging from 112 grams up to 750 grams, which means, theoretically, i could do this for two years (if i wanted to repeat two of them), but, for now, i’m a lot more interested in seeing how it works, and if anybody actually signs up, before i want to go making plans too far in advance. the incense i’ve got means that if, by some miracle, i actually get 25 people who sign up in january, i can send them anywhere between 5 and 15 sticks per month. if you count in the shipping, that comes out to almost exactly what they would pay for one pack of incense that you CAN find on the web.

this should be interesting. keep your eyes peeled for upcoming information about the Incense Of The Month Club‼‼😎👍

pictures, rants

FUCK 2020!

our BRAND NEW, not even three months old yet, 6-foot security fence, has been destroyed by a falling tree.

200925 FUCK 2020!
200925 FUCK 2020!

200925 FUCK 2020!
200925 FUCK 2020!
200925 FUCK 2020!
200925 FUCK 2020!

it was a dead tree, on the neighbour’s yard, that fell… it didn’t even have the decency to fall all at once; it broke off about 20 feet up (remember, it was dead), and the broken part fell on our fence… it didn’t hit the shed, and nobody got hurt, which is a good thing, but still…

FUCK 2020‼‼

titles

titles

Flimflam Phloem
Gunko
Ham Maze
Vàsqueeze
Wendy’s House of Pho
Self Hostage
Acceptable Bones
War To Salvation Church
Can I ask a state trailer park?
No Tw Eeze About It
AI Pastor At Your Door
Are you happy now?
Overachiever Acadamy
Of course I’ve had it in the ear before!
Blasphemy Attorney

WEAR EVERY HUGO THEIR YOUR

hybrid elephant, incense, incense of the month club

okay, here we go…

i have become more and more aware of the existence of “subscription services” (and have actually signed up for a few, myself), where you sign up, and pay a chunk of money, and then you get pins, or buttons, or stickers, or candy, or what-have-you, once a month for a year.

my impression is that they’re really “trendy”.

so, i have decided that i’m going to have a go at creating one myself.

mine is going to be the “incense of the month” club: you sign up and pay a chunk of money (i’m thinking between $75 and $100), and, in return, once a month, for a year, i’ll send you between 10 and 25 sticks of special, rare, unavailable anywhere else on line or off, incense… and maybe a little blurb about the incense, and a sticker or a button or something, if i want to add some extra zip to the whole thing.

at this point, i believe i’ve got enough “special, rare, unavailable anywhere else on line or off, incense” to fill 25 or so subscriptions for a year… honestly, i can’t imagine more than a handful of people subscribing, at all, but i’ve been wrong before…

i think, at this point, the hardest thing for me may be the fact that, in order for this to even come close to having a chance, i’m going to have to “talk it up” on “social media”, the whole idea of which turns my stomach.

so, anyway, look for the "incense of the month" club announcement coming in january.

wtelf

emergency services must not have a lot to do today… 🤨

a fire truck, with all of its lights on (but no sirens, as this is a residential neighbourhood) just drove past our house.

we live almost at the end of a dead end street, so i went out to see if i could see what was happening.

what i saw, was the fire truck, with all of its lights on, turning around at the dead end, and then driving back up the street.

WTF, right?

then, about five minutes later, i saw an ambulance, with all of its lights on, drive past our house. when i went out, it, too, was turning around, and it, too, drove back up the street…

WTELF???

frustration, political, the very big stupid

can i start murdering people yet?

200915 USPS misleading postcard
200915 USPS misleading postcard

the postmaster general, louis dejoy, the republican mega-donor to #drumpf, who has no actual experience with the post office, but who was, nevertheless, appointed to be postmaster general by #drumpf; who, in september, 2020 (yes, that means last week), was blocked, by a court ruling, from sending out false or misleading information about the election, and when secretaries of state requested that he show them examples of the mailing he was planning to send out, he refused to do so…

… has sent out false or misleading information about the election! SHOCKER!!! 😲

how many things can i count on this postcard that are false or misleading? 😠

1) it was sent to me, a voter in washington state, where we have had ALL MAIL-IN VOTING FOR AT LEAST TEN YEARS! and, yes, i am aware that it was actually sent to “Postal Customer”, and not directly to me, but the fact remains that i, and hundreds of thousands of my closest neighbours, LIVE IN WASHINGTON, WHERE WE HAVE MAIL-IN VOTING!! 🤬

in my opinion, the biggest “false or misleading” thing about this poscard is that it was sent to anyone in washington state! 😠

2) “start today…” go to this URI… but when you follow the link, all you find is MORE false and misleading information… especially if you live in a state (there are 10 of them) which has all mail-in voting…

3) “request your mail-in (often called “absentee ballot”)”… except that, in states where they have all mail-in voting (once again, there are 10 of them), they’re NOT called “absentee ballots”, which are, in fact, an entirely different sort of ballot, for a different purpose, altogether.

4) “Add postage…” my ballot is postage paid. does that mean i have to add MORE postage? the aforementioned web site doesn’t have anything to say about that.

5) “at least 7 days before election day.” does that mean that, even if i drop it in a ballot drop box 5 days before election day, that my ballot won’t be counted? as before, the aforementioned web site doesn’t have anything to say about that… 😒

and, as far as murdering people goes, if i can’t murder someone important, like #drumpf, pence, or dejoy (which, i admit, is pretty unlikely), or someone more local, like katie daviscourt (seriously, look her up… she’s a certified nut case with a dangerously wild imagination and a BIG audience), i’m perfectly happy to murder myself, so you other people don’t have anything to worry about. 😒

ETA 200921: HERE is a link from the secretary of state for washington, that has a lot more reliable information about the election than anything you can get from the federal government these days… 😒

house stuff, wildfires

😢

200911 wildfires
200911 wildfires

i’m where the blue dot is.

we’re further away from the wildfires at the new place than we were at the old place, which is futher to the left, and more towards the bottom, in between pacific and edgewood, just north of the puyallup fire.

200911 air quality index
200911 air quality index
200911 outside our house
200911 outside our house

moe sez we’re going to be okay, but the sky has changed from blue, to grey, to orange, within the last half hour, and there’s a fine layer of ash everywhere.

and there are STILL people who insist that “global warming is a hoax”…

200911 sunset
200911 sunset

😢

bizarre, hybrid elephant

sigh… 😒

today, i got two letters(!) in the standard mail(!).

one of them was an official letter from the DOR, telling me that i had, recently, assigned myself “administrator” of my account…

except that it was addressed to the wrong name…

the other one was an unofficial letter, in a hand-addressed envelope, from a rental company which now, apparently, owns the property that i lived in EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO(!), informing me that they had received a letter from the DOR at that address (seriously, i haven’t gotten mail there for EIGHTEEN YEARS 🤯), and that i should update my address with them.

they included the letter they received.

it was a letter, addressed TO THE WRONG NAME, informing me that my business account does not have an administrator, and gives instructions on how to apply for the position.

that’s not the bizarre part.

the bizarre part is that the return address on the hand-addressed envelope is “YDPAGES”, all in uppercase letters, with the address 12819 SE 38th St., Bellevue, WA 98006.

the letter is on the letterhead for RNR Property Investments, at the same address, and is signed by the CEO for RNR Property Investments, whose email address is at ydpages dot com.

is this starting to sound a little sketchy to you? it is to me…

that address is, now, a UPS store (which doubles as a post-office box location). that address is also, literally, RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from the place i used to work before i got my job at software.com (which became openwave)… according to my handy list of when things happened, i worked there from 1996 to 1998… at that time, there were no buildings there, just raw hillside, covered with second growth forest. i used to eat my lunch on that hillside. i found psychedelic mushrooms on that hillside…

this guy, who sounds REALLY sketchy, somehow got standard mail for my business, at an address i haven’t used in almost 20 years, and mails it to me, and it gets here at EXACTLY the same time as a message from “the government” about EXACTLY THE SAME THING…

if i weren’t already paranoid enough, as it is… 🤬

anhedonia

that guy that sat in the SUV for 15 years…

while i was living at our old place, i used to walk through the neighbourhood, down to the park, through the park, and then back home, in a big, semi-circular, 4+ mile route.

something i have been unable to locate at the new place, despite the fact that we’re surrounded on three sides by the cedar river watershed, tiger mountain, taylor mountan, and a number of other places to hike, there is nothing within walking distance apart from the walsh lake overflow ditch road, which is just under a mile away from our house, and behind several layers of “NO TRESSPASSING” dire warning signs… 😒

but i digress.

fairly early on, after i discovered this route, i encountered a guy who would be sitting in a late-’90s-model SUV, probably a ford or a chevrolet, near the intersection of S. 380th and 42nd ave. s., in the unincorprorated area of king county just north of milton/edgewood (which is in pierce county). this guy would just sit in his car, engine off but listening to the radio. he was an “older” guy, probably between 60 and 80 or so, and someone — i don’t know if it was him, or someone else — moved the car from time to time. he was never sitting in the driver’s seat when i saw him…

and i saw him, in exactly the same place, in exactly the same car, doing exactly the same thing, day or night, winter or summer, rain or shine, for EASILY ten years, and, since we lived in the house for 17 years, there’s a good chance that it was fifteen years…

i was at the old house this afternoon, and i drove by the spot, and, sure enough, there he was, sitting in exactly the same spot… someone had moved the car, and the back hatch was open, but he was there, sitting in the passenger seat, listening to the radio…

i imagine that it could have been me, if i had been like 95% of the other people who survive having a brain injury… and i wonder why people like rick and sketch and simon are the ones who get to die, while i, who have had every opportunity to die, stubbornly defy all odds, and stay alive. 😒