malada

I wish I could say something positive about all of this... but I can't.

I don't know of anything positive to come out of it all.

Histories of hatred, bloodshed, killing, war... it's just going to continue.

Revenge on revenge. Injustice upon injustice.

I'm broken.

Right now the COVID vaccine and the flu vaccine are running around my immune system, playing loud music, creating graffiti and generally poking my white blood cells yelling, "COME AT ME BRO!" and being generally a nuisance.

So I'm a bit achy today. Didn't sleep well either. But if the Real Deal comes strolling into town, my immune system will be waiting with brass knuckles, knives and various forms of guns.

Germ warfare - where the germs *lose*.

Heh.

Welcome https://unicourtney.dreamwidth.org/

From your profile you like to read different journals! I'll try not to disappoint.

I usually take a short walk - about 15 minutes - nearly every morning and several different routes I take. I've been doing this for years.

Recently, on one route I pass by a certain house and a female voice calls out, "Hi!" and then continues for about a sentence that I can't make out.

This is new.

After a few repeats every time I pass by the driveway it dawns on me that it's some kind of recording. The house the driveway belongs to has security signs set up. I figure it has something to do with the security system and try not to be startled when I hear it.

It wasn't until last night that I figured out what the full recording was: "Hi! You are being recorded." I think it's a standard warning for a particular brand of video surveillance system. Okay.

So this morning when my presence triggered the warning I did a little 15 second dance and ended the performance by 'walking like an Egyptian'. I hope they will enjoy the show.

There's the old Novell server room at work. The order has gone out that it's to be cleared out and everything in it thrown away. The Novell system was ditched around 2012.

They let me have dibs.

What I've already looted: operating system DVDs and manuals, lots of loose CAT 5 cables, two desktops and a Mac Powerbook from 2010, some loose hard drives, two 4x3 flatscreen monitors and some odds and ends.

What I *won't* be taking is the 3 or 4 old Novell servers and the off-line data server. I don't take equipment that I can't lift and I definitely can't lift those puppies. I won't be taking the boxes of backup tapes that went with the servers or the APC battery backups - they're probably dead and I can't lift them.

I'm leaving the two - eight port KVM switches. The older ones can't handle resolutions over 800x600.

However, there is a pile of around two dozen USB IOmega external hard drives. I've tested a few of them and they're usage dates between 2011 - 2012. They have one terarbyte hard drives in them. So, they're over ten years old but have fairly low usage.

I can still look at the data - it uses some program called VERITAS to back up things. I haven't tried reading them.

I'm not sure what I'd do with two dozen external 1 terabyte hard drives but I'd hate to see them just go to the dump. If I take them I'll DBAN them, create new partition tables and format them - probably in NTFS (Windows). Most are missing their little power supplies and USB cables so I suspect that they were either tossed or there's a stash of them... somewhere.

Thoughts?

When the counter-offensive started (no, I'm not going to pin a time when it started) I figured it would start very very slowly then pick up speed at a future date.

I think that future date may be coming closer.

After Putin's failed blitzkrieg the Ukrainian response has been to shape the battlefield. Using NATO/USA/Western weapons like the HiMARS - Ukraine has been starving the Russian army: destroying stocks of food, ammo, weapons and - when they can - officers. The Russian army may be bigger and not entirely stupid and corrupt but hungry, ill-lead soldiers are generally poor fighters. So Ukraine has been holding the line against more Russian gains while dropping bridges, torching tanks and generally playing Hob with supply lines. This takes time.

Unfortunately, this has given Russia times to build defenses especially minefields. Wading through them takes time.

Standard NATO/USA methods of breaking through heavily fortified defenses usually involves lots of specialized equipment to quickly blow up and bulldoze through the minefields to let the tanks and heavy infantry advance. This assumes air superiority which the Ukrainians don't have. It could be argued that the Russians don't either but still, this means standard NATO/USA methods aren't appropriate for Ukraine. Sneak attacks and missile barrages work, but again... take time.

With supply lines disrupted the Russian soldiers - many of them poorly equipped and trained to begin with - are wondering where their next box of ammo, or hot meal, is coming from. And when. Sure, they have rows of mines, trenches and tank obstacles but if you have no bullets or food... fighting becomes very difficult.

If we keep the supplies rolling into Ukraine the tide will turn in their favor. Give it time.

-m

According to the AP - one of the people who threatened to kidnap Michigan's liberal governor had his mommie buy his guns.

"LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The mother of a 30-year-old Michigan man who’s accused of making death threats against Democratic politicians is now charged with lying when she purchased firearms later found in her son’s possession."

https://apnews.com/article/whitmer-arrest-threats-politicians-4ef9072a6b9bfa011d8d59c1540cf363

Now, I'm not going to poke fun at grown people still living with their parents. I spent a good part of my adult life living at home either saving money or recovering from job losses and bad relationships. But... big tough guys having their mommies buy their penis extenders? You get endlessly mocked.

And guns are expensive toys - it's not like when I asked my dad for a loan when I was flat broke and needed tires - guns are not a necessity - they're status symbols. I wonder if she washed his clothes too?

-m

Cute fluffers are taking over in Florida

"A community in South Florida has an adorable problem on its hands.

Dozens of domesticated bunnies have overrun parts of Wilton Manors, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. Two years after a resident let loose lionhead rabbits from their backyard, according to local lore, the number of rabbits now outnumber the 81 homes in the Jenada Isle neighborhood."

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/23/1189630073/florida-rabbit-rescue-suburb

So if you go to Florida, pack your Moxie, your fire axe and vanilla along with your sunscreen.

-m

Bastille Day
Available on Caress of Steel

Music: Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson
Lyrics: Neil Peart

There’s no bread let them eat cake
There’s no end to what they’ll take
Flaunt the fruits of noble birth
Wash the salt into the earth
But they’re marching to Bastille Day
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize
Free the dungeons of the innocent
The king will kneel, and let his kingdom rise

Bloodstained velvet, dirty lace
Naked fear on every face
See them bow their heads to die
As we would bow as they rode by

And we’re marching to Bastille Day
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize
Sing, o choirs of cacophony
The king has kneeled, to let his kingdom rise.

Lessons taught, but never learned
All around us anger burns
Guide the future by the past
Long ago the mould was cast

For they marched up to Bastille Day
La guillotine – claimed her bloody prize
Hear the echoes of the centuries
Power isn’t all that money buys

Gallstones to be specific.

Two bouts of severe GI distress sent to to the walk in clinic with GI distress and black stools. Since I drank some Pepto earlier in the week to soothe things that may be why the stools were black.

They ordered blood work and an Ultra sound. The blood test came back good - no blood loss, no signs of cancer, but the ultra sound found a polyp inside my gall bladder and some gall stones. Since I was still walking and talking they deemed it benign for the moment - no rush to surgery - and put me on a BRAT diet. (Bananas, rice, applesauce, toast.)

My middle hurts like I had a boxer do me in from the inside. I'll be working remotely: the bathroom is closer and if I want to take a nap in the afternoon no one is going to mind.

I see the gastro gal next week.

=m