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The NRA has filled for bankruptcy

Shortly after the announcement, New York Attorney General Letitia James said she would not allow the NRA to "evade accountability" or oversight. Her office's lawsuit last year highlighted misspending and self-dealing claims that have roiled the NRA and its longtime leader, Wayne LaPierre, in recent years -- from hair and makeup for his wife to a $17 million post-employment contract for himself.

"The NRA's claimed financial status has finally met its moral status: bankrupt," James said.

In other news, a couple was fined a total of $3,000 for violating Quebec's curfew by claiming that the woman was out walking her dog. She held the dog leash, attached to a dog collar around the neck of her partner-in-stupidity. covid fatigue?

Maybe in her defence she'll say the Bible says all men are dogs …

I'm sick and tired of hearing about the Overton Window as if it's some great advance in social psychology. It's not, and never was.

But for all those who blathered about it, the so-called Overton Window is being slammed shut. Thanks to Trump.

Just before Trump's attempts to overthrow the government, we saw Pornhub having to delete the majority of its porn stash - not by government, not by petitions, not to comply with laws about their illegal hosting of kiddie porn and revenge porn, but by the credit card companies. People were holding them accountable for enabling pernhub.

So the pendulum had been beginning to reverse (pendulums do that).

It would have continued anyway as more hosting companies are being held liable for enabling their clients websites, but Trump lit a fire under this reversal.

Starting with Twitter temporarily banning Trump, the trend gained spread. It's now extended past social media to companies providing hosting such as Amazon, and banning of social media apps on both Apple and Google that don't have moderation to prevent them from being misused. It's only a matter of time until all web sites have to comply, with crackdowns on anonymous posting, fake accounts, and violations of laws in the users jurisdiction. Same as Twitter currently bans all Nazi posts being viewable in Germany under penalty of €10,000 per day per offence.

The old excuse of "we are trying but it's too hard" no longer is acceptable. Can't do it? Then close. Same as every other business that can't comply with laws and regulations.

Even Republicans are now pointing out that the first amendment doesn't apply to private businesses like internet platforms.

Skip to #4 for a warning about mislabeled masks. They're everywhere plenty of misleading packaging, and some outright fraud.

1. As Trump rattles around the White House going through social media withdrawal, he can at least still stream music. My suggestions;

1. Fool on the Hill (originally written about Richard Nixon)
2. Should I Stay or Should I Go?
3. Nowhere Man - another Beatles song
4. Jailhouse Rock
5. Jagged Little Pill
6. R E S P E C T
7. Every Move Tou Make
8. (Can't Get No) Satisfaction
9. All Along the Watchtower (Hendrix version - the Dylan version sucks)
10. Money Money Money
11. Only Women Bleed
12. Hotel California
13. It's the End of the World as We Know It
14. Eve of Destruction
15. Turn, Turn, Turn
16. Believe in Me
17. What a Difference a Day Makes

Feel free to add.

2. A possible answer to "where have all the old coders gone?" A recent story had comments about cognitive decline after the flu pandemic, increases in Parkinson's, etc. and the possibility of a link between repeated bouts of inflammation from flu linked to mental decline, and the coronavirus is linked to cognitive difficulties (long covid brain fog, etc).

Given that there are 4 coronavirus that cause common colds, and that the majority of the population don't develop long term immunity after infection, could repeated infections of coronavirus and flu be an explanation for why old coders no longer do much more than simple maintenance, or administrative / management functions? Has creativity been burned out of their brains?

Once again, time to say I got it right. I told everyone that I hoped Trump would win because (a) the DNC nominated Hillary Clinton, the ONLY person Trump could beat, and (b) he would destroy the Tea Party, and wreck the Republican Party.

Trump made the Tea Party an extension of him. They're as dead as he is. As an example, a week ago people were taking Ivanka Trump's talk of running for the US senate in Florida seriously. Now it's laughable.

Ted Cruz? Obsolete, like Ted Kazinsky , who he's starting to look like.

I'd say Mission Accomplished.

4. I've been using washable cloth masks. When I went back to volunteer Thursday I was told a government inspector said we had to use the disposable masks we have seven using for months, with a box at the entrance for anyone who didn't have their own.

Being half blind, it was hard for me to read the side of the box, but apparently nobody else did. They're for protection against light dust.'

I pointed this out (surprise everyone) but rather than argue, I used both that crappy mask and mine on top.

It was awful. The filter paper is coarse and prone to shedding fibres. Yuck. So the next day some people wentback to fabric masks and coffee filters.

Rather than argue, I had a surgical mask for a change. Eat your hearts out! But seriously, I've looked at the masks one of my sisters gave me as "you need to be using these type masks, and I used the phone as a magnifier - turns out the packaging on the front is misleading - it's a dust mask.

The whole supply chain is probably full of this sort of crap, so people are wandering around with a false sense of security.

'and this I not even getting into the whole fraudulently labeled 3-packs of masks at discount stores.

Before I get to the question of the old coders, I have some observations. If you're impatient, just scroll down to the last topic.

(typos, etc? What do you expect. I can't see shit)

The big story for 2020 was sars-cov2

China screwed the world over by trying to control the story.

The World Health Organization screwed the world over by refusing to call a pandemic for political and financial reasons (didn't want to offend China or trigger payouts on pandemic bonds they had sold investors). If this had been an outbreak of h1n1 flu it would have been called much earlier.

Governments screwed the world over by lying to people about the fact that masks protect the wearer, something we knew from the 1918 pandemic.

On the bright side, covid cost Trump the election.

Biden won on the fact he wasn't Trump, end of story. Same as Trump had won because he wasn't Hillary Clinton.

Mozilla proves open source has a money problem.

After laying off 70 staff at the beginning of the year, Mozilla gave the remaining 700 Firefox developers the pink slip.

They have the "opportunity" to continue working for free for a foundation. You can be sure that the people running the foundation will get paid one way or another, just not the workers. That's how open source works now - foundations pay themselves to fundraise for the management paycheques, while in many cases doing not much else.

It's now become not just okay, but fashionable, to point out how they're leeches.

App stores generated over $100 Billion this year.

Spyware Android OS took in only 32% of that, leaving 68% to Apple.

Looks like the app stores have solved the funding model for many developers.

Amazon TV ads reveal most vendors are making less than someone working part time flipping burgers

Amazon is feeling the heat from its policies, so in Canada they're running ads saying that "over 30,000 Canadian businesses sell more than 1 billion a year on Amazon."

For most or them. It's shit. The rule of Pareto states the obvious - 80% of sales are made by 20% of vendors. That means 24,000 vendors are competing for the remaining $200 million in sales. That's a measly $8,333 in sales each.

If they're lucky they're making 20% margin (because people shopping on Amazon are VERY price conscious). So, $1,666 a year in gross profit before expenses. $32 a week.

Seriously? $32 a week profit? And they hold on in the irrational hope that they will somehow break out, despite more and more competition.

Personal silver lining:

Despite the pandemic, the hospital hasn't forgotten my eye surgeries. Though it looks like it's going to take a year or two. Because covid doesn't care.

More silver linings: I dodged covid.

I know two people who died from it, and they were the type you couldn't tell them what to do if their lives depended on it. One of them was hacking up her lungs while insisting that it wasn't covid because god protects believers. In a way I guess she was right - dead people can't catch covid again.

Rumours circulated I was dead.

Obviously someone confused me with the death of the covidiot across the street.

Went legally blind again.

A series of haemorrhages in my better eye left it far worse than my bad eye, which is between 20/300 and 20/400.

Not the first time, but it made things like stairs and streets risky. And walking the dogs at night very much limited.

Bad time for a hernia

In October I got another hernia, and it got to the point that, between it and my diminished sight,I stopped volunteering at the food bank in the middle of December, as we were prepping for Christmas baskets. The busiest time of the year and I'm a no-show. Sucks to be me. But my dogs really liked all the time together uninterrupted.

Best time to get a hernia

Somebody brought covid in after I stopped volunteering, and people are isolating. Never thought I'd find a silver lining to a hernia. But one of my friends got infected, and it's the last thing she needs to deal with. Absolutely the wrong time. Because covid doesn't care.

Should I stay or should I go - Balance of risks.

I was already thinking of quitting in the new year before covid got in, because risk increases with time, and it was inevitable that the odds would catch up.

At the same time it's guaranteed we'll lose volunteers over this, so I'll go back for a while. But I have doubts over long-term viability - if we start bringing more high risk people to help out who were SUPPOSED to be blocked, there's no way.

Obviously if it can't be operated safely it has to close.

Where are the old coders?

I can't wait to come out of retirement once my eyes are fixed. I want to finish the personal project I started as my eyesight faded, plus I have two other projects I want to tackle.

So where are the old coders? Why aren't we hearing more from them?

Are they burnt out? Got dementia? The thrill is gone? No more creativity?

The personal computer industry was started by people working in garages and basements and kitchen tables creating new and innovative hardware and software. No managers. No agile development. No foundations leeching off them. But there were profits, and these both enabled and drove developers to continue creating.

Retired coders don't have to worry about getting fired - thanks to retirement pensions. Same with no need for venture capital. "

There's also a natural competitive advantage - the old coders built the existing shit, know what's crappy, and can do it better from scratch the second time around without interference from management.

Build what you want, the way you imagined it.

So why isn't it happening? After all, life expectancy for those who don't get covid is 90, and when a 65-year old reaches 90, its likely to be 97. So more than 3 decades to give a big "Fuck You" to the current way of doing things.

Possible reasons? Well, for many people at 40, they're past their peak in terms of coding. They've either gone on to management or changed fields. Does anyone believe an RMS or ESR has any gas left in the tank when they passed their peak in the 90s?

Maybe they just don't have a creative urge any more and can't be arsed to do much more than piddling around.

Maybe they can't make the switch to yet another platform ("what, again?"). It can be discouraging.

But it's not like retirees want to just sit around and rust. Look at who's volunteering. Plenty of retirees.

So are they just intimidated, afraid they'll come up short? Come on people, if someone had offered such a deal to you when you were 30 years younger - guaranteed pay, work on whatever you want, partner with whoever you want, and keep any profits, wouldn't you have jumped on it?

1. It's now obvious that the only thing that will prevent a Biden landslide is voter suppression tactics.

After badly losing in the first debate, Trump ducked out of the second because he did not 't agree to covid precautions - well, that's an obvious lie. He got creamed, and it was mostly by opening his lying yap. '

So Biden scheduled a town hall. Trump then scheduled a competing town hall. Everyone expected Trump to win the ratings that night, because people like to watch a dumpster fire or a train wreck live.

But Biden won the ratings that night.'

Trump is scared shitless, with his aids putting out the lie that they never agreed that the Electoral Commission and the moderator were not agreed to by his campaign as being the sole choosers of the questions for the third debate.

'so now that there's going to be a mute button, he's going to try to spin that as an excuse to boycott the third debate. The only question is, does he have the guts to do the smart thing and actually avoid the debates and a third loss? Or will his ego convince him that he can still pull it off.'

Either way, he's already the biggest loser.

2 I told you so! In a previous journal entry I wrote that Trump wanted Ivan's to be his Veep in 2020. Crazy. Except that we found out later that he pushed for ivanka to be his veep in 2016. Even ran two pollsto test the idea, which ranked. Even after that, he kept pushing until Ivanka told him to drop the idea, because she didn't want to be publicly humiliated.

3. That puts all the claims that Trump didn't really want to win the election into perspective - he wanted it! Bad!

4. Campaign funds - Biden and other democratic candidates are easily raised more money than Trump and republicans. Earlier, aTrump said he would be ready to put $50,000,000 from his own pocket into the race.

' Problem is, he doesn't have $50,000,000 to spare. We found out just how close to broke he really s with his potential tax liabilities, continued losses on his golf courses, and filings showing he's already liquidated most of his stock and bond holdings.

5. Notice how slow a page loads when you load something with a couple hundred comments? That's a combination of bad design and shitty hosting. But what can you expect from Perl?

Which brings up a question - why bother with all the financial overhead of being a registered charity - it can't be for liability protection. Section 230 already gives protection for liability of posters comments, and doesn't provide any protection to the operators for criminal activity.

Why not stop with the expenses of being a charitable organization; so you won't be giving out tax receipts - big deal. Does anyone believe that would make a difference?

Put the savings into a better hosting plan. Or, since you're making your source available, why not take up a hosting company on their offer to host open source projects for free. After all, the site is a working demo.

6. Slashdot isn't great, but they're far more realistic about the decline of RMS, ESR, and open source in general. Why? Maybe because users there aren't veins to the reality that computer users are happy to pay to get what they want, rather than setting for crap. People want games. They want smartphone apps. They don't want Tux Racer or emacs (emacs was always niche).

7. If you're going to give programs away, don't give the source. This way you can make money selling add-in's and customizations. Giving away the source means that you will end up like the developers of Firefox - fired because the people who inevitably co-opt the project care more about their jobs than the geese that lay the golden eggs.

So, enjoy the election, and I'm sure a year from now many of you who aren't died in the wool racists will claim you never really supported Trump. Just remember what I wrote more than 4 years ago elsewhere - I hoped Trump would win because he would destroy the Republican Party from the inside. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

This journal entry is shit, or at least about shit.

The whole fake Azuma Hazuki 2.0 thing crossed a few lines. Making a bogus account using the identity of one of the few women here, and trying to justify posting racist crap under that look-alike identity was unfortunately typical of what too often passes for thinking.

Trying to justify it as an attempt to "expose censorship" or some other nonsense, should have brought immediate censure. It didn't because to too many users it's "reasonable."

It's not going to get any better. Too many people like things as they are.

So why bother? That's what I've been increasingly asking myself, and the answer is that there is no reason. Turns out there is no reason.

I'd say thanks for all the fish, but not really.

Some interesting facts:

The number 1 computing device is the smartphone.

There are almost 3 million apps in the Google Play App Store.

There are over 2 million apps in the Apple App Store

Almost all of these apps are closed source.

People are making money off writing closed source apps - either by sales to customers or via ads in free versions and paid downloadable content.

Open source simply will never get a toe-hold in this market. It's the same problem with open source games - low quality because investing in the time, resources, and talent for better quality is only sustainable if you keep the source closed.

Mobile apps are by far the largest market, but open source doesn't have what people want, so you won't see much there.

Besides, developers like getting paid. The days of "doing it to build up the open source community " are over. The community is now a backwater.

ESR framed it as a war between the Cathedral and the Bazaar . The bazaar won - but the bazaar is closed source app stores.

RMS said closed source was ethically wrong. In every other field of human endeavour it's ethical to get paid for your talent and labour. RMS is ethically wrong to claim that closed source is unethical, and by extension, the people who write it.

The open source bazaar is failing ; the closed source bazaar is flourishing.

The people have voted, and they don't want open source apps; not only that, but the majority of developers don't want to waste their time on them.

Open source has failed in the two largest markets - games and smartphone/tablet apps.

It's not like there haven't been open source tablets around - they've always been crappy low-spec holiday specials that end up getting returned because there's no "real" software for them. So retailers, after getting burned too many times, simply don't offer them.

Because it's the programs and applications that count, and open source can't compete in the two biggest arenas.

Same with business - there's always that one crucial piece of software that doesn't have a good open source equivalent. This was true in the 90s when everyone was crowing about the year of the Linux desktop being inevitable. It's more true now that nobody is saying it any more.

And all you hypocrites who say I'm wrong but still keep a Windows box or a proprietary game console for games, you know who you are. Stop lying to yourselves and making excuses.

Either fix the funding model for open source software in general or admit that ESR and RMS misled you. Because their bazaar is not the one you or anyone else is looking for … not really.

Posted from a 6-year-old iPhone - because it still works great and I can't be bothered to turn on the Linux laptop for the first time in months. Because the latest Opensuse Linux is clunky in comparison.

A while back CTV ran a poll (scroll through the recent polls asking if this was the worst year of your life?

The results:

Yes 883 (51 %)
No 859 (49 %)

We're in a country with universal health care, a decent social safety net, massive emergency payments to people unable to work during the pandemic, etc.

And a lower covid infection and death rate than our neighbours to the south.

88% of all deaths in Quebec were in old age homes - given the average half-life of someone in a home is 12-18 months, 25% were expected to die between the beginning of the year and today anyway.

As one woman put it on tv, you don't go to a long term care home to get better - you go there to die.

The problem was care workers deserted the homes en masse out of fear of catching covid, leaving inmates (they are inmates - doors have keypads to keep them from wandering around) to die in horrific conditions, rather than the normal course of events.

The high death rate in homes is partly attributed to greater access to public care homes. It's actually cheaper for a single person to live in a public home with all meals, etc., included than living on your own.

So, with the general (non-home-care) population having a really low per capital death rate, even among seniors living independently , why the fear?

Do we not trust the science? That these viruses can be defeated by washing your hands, keeping your distance from others, and wearing a mask indoors in public places? Same as colds flus, and the coronaviruses that cause cold-like symptoms.

Unless someone close to you died, you must have led a very sheltered life for this year to be the worst ever. For me, it's not even in the top 10, or maybe the top 20.

Seriously, get a grip. Look at everywhere else, and stop your whining. Because we're probably only at the beginning of a looong haul.

Filed under "Soylent", for all the grief soylentils gave me for pointing out that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes and totally unnecessary.

Don't take my word for it - this article quotes the military commanders who were there, and you can follow the links for confirmation.

If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals"

-- US General Curtis Lemay, who implemented the Pacific theatre bombing campaign.

He (Lemay) also said about Vietnam: "We should bomb them back into the stone ages."

So he admitted it was a war crime, but the ends justify the means.

"We had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages"

-- Fleet Admiral William Leahy, chair of the chiefs of staff under Roosevelt and Truman

Even Eisenhower had "grave misgivings" about the morality of the bombings.

President Truman lied in a radio broadcast to the nation, claiming that Hiroshima was a military base.

Was it necessary. Nope.

Here's what those who were there said:

Chester W Nimitz, the commander in chief of the US Pacific fleet, insisted that they were “of no material assistance in our war against Japan”.

Eisenhower agreed that they were “completely unnecessary” and “no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives”.

General Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of the southwest Pacific area, saw “no military justification for the dropping of the bomb”.

The official Strategic Bombing Surveys in 1946 concluded that “Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped”.

Don't believe me - believe Eisenhower, Nimitz and MacArthur. They were there, and were well aware of the strategic situation. If they said the bombings weren't necessary from a strategic standpoint, how are you going to argue otherwise?

Read the rest of the story, and follow the links to sources, to see how it was a stupid, unnecessary move motivated by racism (both sides were motivated by racism).

Robert McNamara had a first-hand seat.

In the 2003 documentary The Fog of War, Robert McNamara, the former US defence secretary who had been LeMay’s military aide during the Second World War, reflected on the question of war crimes:

“LeMay recognised that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?”

So, useless bombings that didn't change the war, that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians (mostly women and children because the men were out dying in war), and the people in charge admitted that it was a war crime. All to show Russia who was going to be top dog in the post-war world order, as laid out in the supporting links.

Those who don't know history are indeed doomed to repeat it.

The McNamara interview also gives an amazing first-hand perspective on this, plus Vietnam, Cuba, etc.

Hiroshima anniversary

75 years ago, in what is widely viewed as unnecessary damage to an already defeated enemy, Hiroshima was nuked. Nagasaki followed 3 days later. Russia correctly saw this as a warning about who would be top dog in the post-war era. War is indeed politics pursued by other means.

Canada's Governor General gives yet another reason to abolish the office and the monarchy

While not quite as crazy as the going's on in the USA and Brexit Uk, Canada's Governor General shows she's truly a self-entitled space cadet. What started out as "I want a cat door" ballooned into a $114,000 study for a private entrance, stairwell, and balcony.

She's already under investigation for multiple harassment complaints. Hey Julie - MOAR LITHIUM!!!

Quebec's medical director whining about getting doxxed

News flash, dude! Under both Quebec and Canadian privacy legislation, your home address is not "protected personal information." And if you take a threat posted on Facebook seriously, you're an even bigger idiot than you've shown yourself to be by your continued flip flops on policy.

"Masks don't work for the general public." "Oops, I mean they do work to protect the people around you." "Uh, ignore the increasing evidence that they protect the wearer - what works for asians won't work for people from our culture." "All kids need to go to school because they don't get sick." "Oops, they get sick sometimes but they don't transmit it." "Ignore the outbreaks in day cares." "Ignore the new studies that show kids are really good at spreading the disease because we have to open the schools even when 80% of parents in the English sector want distance learning instead."

But what can you expect from this government. Look at his boss … speaking of which …

Quebec premier Legault shows the perils of putting a former business man who can't do math in charge

With thousands of people dying in care homes, Legault asked for military help from Canada to help stabilize the situation until 10,000 new care workers could be trained with promises of full time salaries at50% higher than the current private sector. The military got the situation stabilized and then left, replaced by 273 Red Cross workers.

With 5,000 people dying in nursing homes, often ion thirst and starvation in their own shit, and others being pulled out by relatives, the need for 10,000 new full time workers is just not there.

Bring back lockdown

Last year there were 10 incidents involving pervs and freaks. Then lockdown happened - none!

But sure enough, as lockdown has eased, out come the idiots, including another unwanted stalker.

I'm out walking the dogs after watching the nightly news cast, and this guy comes up, complements me on my dogs, and then immediately asks me what my citizenship is. Here we go again - yet another desperate immigrant whose westernized wife has got tired of working, taking care of the house, raising the kids, and is fed up with him refusing to take a job that is "beneath him." All quickly confirmed as he complains about his divorce and living in a basement room of a relative.

Seen this story before, it's boring, and I'm doing my best to politely get away from him, but he keeps following. I get fed up and explain to him that in Canada you do not go up to women you don't know and just start pumping them for personal information. The dogs start walking, stop for a sniff and a pre, he catches up … FUCK! Finally get away.

Three nights, different times - "do you have a husband, what is your job, etc.

The problem is that, like many men from Pakistan, Syria, etc, they have no real job skills, and their lack of social skills and behaviour around women would get them fired almost immediately. So they're desperate to find someone who's a Canadian citizen and has been one for at least 10 years before retirement, to get the maximum federal pension. So there are quite a few men whining about living with 2 other men in poverty, or in a relatives basement, and they don't seem to realize that all the women are on to them. Know some of thee exes. And that they are losers, period.

Problem is, unless you tell them directly to go fuck themselves, they take anything less than outright rejection as encouragement. Being "hard to get." Because women NEED a man to ensure their social status. Hahaha! NOT!

The 4th time in just over two weeks was Monday night. He was talking with someone else on the sidewalk, I didn't see him until it was almost too late, I stepped off the sidewalk and walked around a parked car, he started coming towards me, and I shouted "You stay away from me or I'm calling the cops!"

Had to do it again. Then he says "I'm going to call the cops on you. I never talked to you before!@

Stupid idiot doesn't know I texted a coworker after the first incident, and told several coworkers and one of my sisters about the other ones.

He fakes a call to 9-1-1 to save face, while saying again that he's never talked to me before and that he's not interested in me because he's happily married (yeah, right, that's why I keep running into him prowling the streets at night).

If was so much nicer when the only people out were essential workers and people walking their dogs.

Good news, bad news joke

Actually no joke. I went to the hospital to have my new ophthalmologist examine my retinas. Back in December he had said I would need two vitrectomies to patch the holes in both retinas. He had already done one 5 years ago, and I'm not looking forward to a double repeat performance.

The streets around the hospital complete usually very busy - 6 lanes of traffic, not counting a lane on each side for street parking. But last Friday it was like a sci-fi film of the day after almost everyone died. Deserted streets, almost no pedestrians. The subway was pretty empty, as were the buses.

The hospital was almost deserted. Almost no waiting, not for tests, not for exams. One of the techs said it was because only patients who HAD to be there were being seen.

So turns out that the holes in both retinas repaired themselves. So we can do the cataracts when I'm ready. However … forget standard lenses - way too much astigmatism. Forgot multi focus or variable focus lenses. The movement of the lense forward and backwards in the eye as you change focus acts like a small bathroom plunk, even the manufacturers say it's too risky for retinal tears or holes with retinas like mine. So, middle distance for the worse eye, and reading for the better eye. It's called monovision, and I sort of already figured that would be the best compromise.

So, Monday morning I bend over to pick up the dogs leash, stand up, and I haven't seen a bleeder like that in a few years. In my good eye. Shitshitshit.

I walk the dogs, go in to volunteer, explain that I won't be lifting anything heavy for a while, do a few hours of really light work, we take a break for lunch, I screw up my insulin and end up grabbing a can of tonic water (first thing I could find that wasn't diet) and head on home to sleep it off. What a crappy day.

Go in the next day, decide I'll clean up a bit, pick up a bag of garbage to put it in a cart, and my eye hurts. Okay, time to listen to the body before I screw it up some more.

Not really needed yesterday or today, but am needed tomorrow, so hopefully it will have healed enough. Otherwise back to bed or sitting on the couch.

It's a reminder that even after cataract surgery I'll always be at risk of further loss of vision. But I was warned of that 9 years ago, so I'll just keep on adapting. I've got family and friends, meaningful work when I can do it, and dogs that stick to me like glue most of the time. Really, I guess I'm doing better than all the people who are stressed out by covid. I just wear my mask (I have 10 I can reuse), wash my hands, and amtry to avoid idiots. Speaking of which …

Poll: How many people do you know who have died of covid

A former neighbour ran into me a few months ago and said someone had told him I had died, but it was the woman down the street at the beginning of lockdown who was hacking her lungs out while saying it wasn't covid because Jehovah God would not let her get infected. Well, being dead does confer long term - even eternal - immunity.

The second death was a woman who started out with a cough and you know how that goes. It's not the coffin that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in.

Turns out that my sisters and I are on the same page on this one - we don't go into other people's homes and we don't let others in ours. Short of lasers from space, it's the only way to be sure.

Hang tough, stay safe.