Steven Harper Piziks

Here We Go Again

2026-06-02T18:06:26Z

Oh, look--they're doing it again.

(TL/DR: Some red states are declaring June to be straight pride month to cover up Gay Pride Month, though they can't "undeclare" Gay Pride.)

As I recall, some group staged a hetero pride festival a couple years ago. No one came, and it flopped. Another group organized a straight pride parade. It got a couple-hundred viewers at most and hasn't been repeated since.

Look, the reason Pride exists is because LGBTQ people are bonded by the struggle for recognition, equality, and acceptance. The movement was born out of anger. Everyone in the LGBTQ community shares this struggle and this anger, and it gives us something to fight for together.

Straight people don't struggle for equality. Nuclear families don't fight for recognition. Fidelious couples don't have to demand acceptance. None of them are angry at the way society treats them. They've been denied nothing. So they have nothing in common except that they're straight, nuclear, or fedelious, and it's never occurred to them to think about how society treats them because they're seen as the default.

"Hey, I'm straight!"

"You are? Me, too! What do you want from society that you aren't already getting?"

"Nothing!"

"Me, too!"

See? With nothing to fight for, no one gets revved up enough to take to the streets.

But the GOP is clutching at straws (or their pearls), looking for something, ANYTHING to distract their votes from the disaster that is their government. I'd roll my eyes, but I'm not revved up enough.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/06/red-states-are-declaring-june-something-other-than-pride-month-in-latest-anti-lgbtq-trend/

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The Five-Day Ick

2026-06-01T16:28:37Z

On Tuesday, I went to Cedar Point with my (ex) sister-in-law Stephanie, who I hadn't seen in quite a long time and who is also the only person I know who likes roller coasters like I do. We had a great time! Even better is that Cedar Point is only two hours away, so it's not a major drive or anything.

On Wednesday, I felt overly tired all day. This was unusual for me. Sure, yesterday I'd walked probably ten miles the day before, but I'd gotten home at a reasonable hour and slept well. I just had no energy all day.

On Thursday, I was definitely sick with something. Malaise, body aches, tired. No temperature or nausea, though.

On Friday, I was worse. We had invited some friends over for a barbecue that evening, and I was forced to cancel it.

On Saturday, I was a bit better, but still not up to normal. What the hell was going on?

On Sunday, I was mostly okay, but shaky. Walking a decent distance winded me. I was supposed to go to my cousin Mark's that afternoon, and I had to cancel that, too.

On Monday (today), I'm finally well. FINALLY!

I spent my sick time mostly on the couch or in bed, reading and watching videos. The cats were alternately delighted (when I let them sit with me) or annoyed (when I didn't). The weather was gorgeous out, too--and I was missing it. I did spend a fair amount of time convalescing on the back deck, though I was chafing at the canceled plans and loss of time on my bike.

It occurred to me today that if I were still working, I probably would have been at Cedar Point on Tuesday anyway, chaperoning the annual physics trip. I would have gotten home at around midnight and had to get up in time to be back at work the next day. So Wednesday I would have taught all day while inexplicably wiped. Thursday and Friday I would have had to call in sick, and then I'd be sick all weekend, getting better just in time to go back to work! The entire incident would have cost me at least two sick days and the loss of a weekend wind-down. So it's better that I'm retired now. :)

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CVS Rant

2026-05-29T22:31:33Z

I've had it with CVS Pharmacy. Why?

I'm sick. I went to urgent care. They sent a scrip to CVS. I decided I may as well to go to the store for a few things while the scrip was filled rather than go out again. I was in the store for over half an hour plus driving time, and the scrip still hadn't been filled. I gave up and was almost home when I got an alert that the scrip was ready.

Sighing, I drove back to CVS. While I was in line (one person ahead of me in the drive-through), I pulled up the little bar code they want you to use in the app to expedite pick-up. When my turn came, I had the clerk scan the code and I told him he should use the card they had on file. It's our HSA debit card. The clerk trotted off. I waited.

And waited.

I finally called out to the clerk when I saw him wander past the window to ask what was going on. "We don't have your card on file," he said.

This has happened more than once. They do have it. I've used it that way several times. But for some reason, about a quarter of the time the clerk says it doesn't work.

"Just let me use this card, then," I said.

The clerk tapped busily at his screen, beeped some bar codes with a scanner, and said, "Oh! Here it is. Now it's working."

He trotted off again for unknown reasons. I waited.

And waited.

Finally he came back. "What's going on?" I demanded.

"The card won't register," he said. "And the system keeps kicking me out. I have to log in from a different machine each time."

"Just USE THIS CARD," I snapped, flicking my debit card at him.

That card went through. Cranky because I'M SICK AND THAT'S WHY I NEED MY MEDS, I snatched the scrips from the clerk and snarled, "Fix your damn system." I left.

All in all, I had waited over 20 minutes because of CVS's outdated, clunky, error-ridden computer system.

This isn't the first time such things and similar problems have cropped at CVS. These problems include:

—The app is consistently awful to use. It takes a long, long, long time to load, and whenever you tap anything, it takes a long, long, long time to do whatever function you ask. A simple request for a refill takes several minutes to complete.

—The pharmacy regularly tells me that either 1) I have no card on file; or 2) there's a card on file, but they can't use it. This happens even when I've used the card on file at other trips to the same pharmacy.

—Their computer system has malfunctions so often that they're now the norm rather than an exception.

—Their mail-order service is, like their computer system, slow and clunky. It's also expensive.

—You can't call the pharmacy on the phone directly. You have to leave a voice mail and wait for them to call you back. Sometimes they call back quickly, but many times, it takes a while. This is particularly difficult to deal with if you're calling them under a time limit, like when you're on lunch at work. If you can't answer when they call back, you get a voice mail from the pharmacist telling you to call back, initiating a game of phone tag.

—Rather than rotate lunch times among the pharmacists, they close completely from 1:30 to 2:00 every day. I can't tell you how many times I've stopped by there and found them closed this way. I've seen people waiting in the drive through standing in line in the store at 1:45 or 1:40 so they don't have to leave and come back again.

I'm done with them. I'm having my scrips transferred to mail-order for recurring scrips and to a different pharmacy for one-shots.

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Cracker Yuck

2026-05-22T18:59:03Z

On a prosaic note, Darwin and I made the mistake of having breakfast at the local Cracker Barrel. It was awful. We both had pancakes, and the "natural syrup" had no real taste. I asked for blueberry syrup, and that had no taste, either. The bacon tasted like cardboard, and that's not a metaphor. It had the same taste as a cardboard box. Darwin said the coffee was blah as well. The sausage patties were the only part of the meal that were in any way acceptable.

We will not return.

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Yep--Death and Taxes

2026-05-17T02:13:32Z

When my brother died two years ago, I was his executor. He died on April 14, the day before tax day, and when I was going through his papers, I couldn't find any evidence that he had paid his taxes. So I spent most of a day handling that. He owed a chunk of money, I wrote a check from his estate, mailed in the forms, and that was last I heard about it.

Until recently.

I got a letter from the IRS that said he still owed over $6,000. The letter listed the reasons. My brother was mostly a freelance contractor, and he hadn't paid his quarterly taxes. (I paid them for the entire year.) Also, I didn't do his taxes until a few months had passed. Even if I had been up to it, I didn't have access to all his stuff for that time.

The IRS said that failing to pay quarterly taxes incurred a late tax penalty, and the final filing was late, and THAT got an additional penalty. (So the penalty was applied TWICE to the first three quarters.) The letter also said in a friendly, hint-of-legal-menace kind of way that "extenuating circumstances" were not valid excuses. Huh.

His estate is long closed. I wrote on the letter that my brother had died, and there was no money in the estate. Please don't contact me again. Then I mailed it back to the IRS.

It all struck me as incredibly stupid. I filed the taxes as the rep for a deceased person. It says so right on the forms, and the letter acknowledged he had died years ago. What did they think was going to happen, especially given that the owed amount was nothing but stupid penalties that shouldn't have been levied in the first place?

If I get more correspondence, I'll return it unopened.

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Return of the Hummers

2026-05-16T21:40:05Z

THE HUMMINGBIRDS ARE BACK!

A little context:

I've been putting out hummingbird feeders for years because I like watching hummingbirds. I've put them out at every house I've owned and always got some to show up.

Then we moved to our current house. I put out hummingbird feeders in the spring and watched hopefully. Nothing. Not a single hummingbird. The next year, I did the same thing and got the same result. And the next. I was seriously wondering what was wrong. There are plenty of trees and flowers around. We aren't close to anything that would scare hummingbirds away. I was unhappily stumped.

This year, Darwin suggested maybe the feeder was somehow the problem and getting a couple of different ones might get them to show up. We did this. One of them has a motion-activated camera on it, too.

I put them out. Nothing. This was over a month ago.

I was about to just toss the feeders and truly give up. I was reading on the back deck yesterday, though, and I heard a familiar deep buzzing sound. I glanced up. A female hummingbird was at one of the feeders. Yay!! She saw me looking at her and zipped away.

Today, I got an alert from the feeder cam. It had caught a short video of the same hummingbird. Yay!! I'm betting she has a nest in the area, too, so we'll get babies later.

Yay!!

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Gay Oops Moment

2026-05-15T23:09:14Z

We had a gay little OOPS moment yesterday.

My son Max bought a truck. He uses our car insurance policy because it saves an enormous amount of money. However, an insurance snag came up, and it was too complicated to handle over text, so Max put the dealer on speaker phone with us.

Darwin greeted him. The dealer said, "Hi! So I'm talking to Mom and Dad? We need to--"

Oops. Darwin and I flicked fast looks at each. Neither of us intended to let that one go by. I jumped in first.

"It's Dad and Dad, actually. Thank you," I said.

At about the same time, Max said, "It's my dads."

The dealer quickly realized his mistake and said, "Sorry! Of course. So this policy..."

This is what we mean when we say that coming out is a life-long process. You're never done. Hopefully the dealer won't make this kind of assumption again!

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How To Predict the Plot

2026-05-13T23:15:27Z

There's a pattern to all scene plotting, and if you know what it is, you can predict almost anything in a story. So don't read this if you want to preserve your literary virginity.

Conflict always starts because the protagonist wants something, and something else stands in the way. This want can be anything from, "I want her to go out with me" (in which the obstacle is the character's insecurity) to "I want to survive this gunfight without getting my ear shot off" (in which the obstacle is five men who keep shooting back).

You can predict the outcome by looking at how the protagonist views the conflict. There are two ways: 1) the protagonist is sure of the outcome; or 2) the protagonist unsure of the outcome. Let's look at these.

In the first case, the protagonist is completely certain the conflict will end a certain way. James is completely confident that she'll agree to go out with him; that his plan will succeed; that he can beat up his rival. In this case, James will fail. She turns him down flat. His plan collapses. The rival beats the tar out of him. Why? It's a surprise plot twist! The writer sets things up so James can't help but succeed, and knows it. So of course, he fails. Every time.

The reverse is also true, by the way. If James is certain he's going to fail, he'll unexpectedly succeed. He's certain she'll turn him down, but he asks anyway, just to prove how much of a schlub he is, but—surprise!—she says yes. His plan is stupid and won't work, but he tries anyway, but—ta da!—it works. There's no way he'll be able to win this fight, but he can't avoid it, so he braces himself for a beating, but—twist!—he gets in a lucky punch and down goes the bad guy.

This is a hubris thing. James cockily decides he's going to win, so he has to lose in order to bring him down a peg. Or it's a the-gods-show-pity thing. James is sad that he's going to lose, so he has to succeed to give him a little boost.

In the second case, James is actually worried about the outcome. He's nervous about asking her out because she might say yes, but she could also say no—and she says yes. The plan might succeed, but it probably won't, and when we put it into action, it works. The fight could go either way, and it goes to James. Authors do this to create suspense. Will James succeed or fail? Keep reading to find out!

Except now that you know the pattern, you don't need to keep reading to find out—you'll already know.

Just kidding! Keep reading. The story is still fun.

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In Which a Witch Gets a Psychic Reading

2026-05-08T03:06:46Z

The French Quarter sits at a bend in the Mississippi River. The upper end is where the partying happens. Down closer to the river is the artsy district, where things are more genteel. Little shops of oddities, restaurants, a standing art festival. A wrought-iron fence surrounds Jackson Square, and artists hang their work on it for sale. Some artists also do caricatures and portraits. The area in front of the cathedral is a regular street theater spot. Jazz bands, an acrobatic clown, and singers rotate through. I haven't been able to figure out if it's a show-up-and-grab-it kind of thing or if there's some kind of schedule. But it's good entertainment.

There's also a long row of psychic readers at little tables under umbrellas.

Hmmm. I've been reading Tarot cards since I was six and I learned palmistry when I was in college. I know exactly how this kind of thing goes. I know what kind of predictions are possible and what aren't. I also know what frauds do to fool people.

I've never had a psychic reading done by someone who didn't know that I'm an expert reader myself. It would be a waste of money, since I can my own reading. Today I decided to have one done, just to see what would happen.

The reader, whose table sign said she was a "True Gypsy Fortuneteller," greeted me and told me I could pay at the end of the reading. She had me spread my hands, palm up, on her table. She glanced at them and read them to me. Then she did a Tarot spread—of only four cards. She dealt them quickly and covered them with a paperweight. I could barely make them out and had to ask her what they were. She told me the cards only worked for a year into the future, and she gave me the card reading.

I knew from the first few seconds that she was a complete fraud, from beginning to end and side to side. It was all show. Even she didn't believe what she was saying.

Here's what she told me about my hands and my cards.

Hands: "You have a stubborn streak and want to get your own way a lot. What's your mother's name? [I told her.] Ah! You have a lot of her in you. You have a long lifeline, so you'll have a long and healthy life. You tend to overthink, and it gets in your way sometimes."

Cards: "You lost some money in 2025. You will come into some money in 2026, though. You're in a stable place in your life." [And a couple other things I forget.]

Did you catch all that? ALL of it could apply to just about anyone. Everyone likes to get their own way. Everyone has their mother in them. I do overthink, she had that right, but it's a very common trait, and she did notice that I hovered a little near her table before sitting down. Overthinking. I retired in 2025, so my income dropped—loss of money—but almost everybody loses money in some way in a given year, and her prediction that more money is to come is a standard upbeat ending to a fake reading. And the word "stable" is so vague as to be meaningless. Stable at relationships? Money? Health? What? It could apply to anyone, from the right point of view. And if she got the long life thing wrong, I literally wouldn't be around to complain about the fact.

(As it happens, I do have a long life line, but in bright sunlight, it looks short because it fades for a while before deepening again. A reader who took a glance like she did should say I have a short lifeline. It takes a longer look to see the continuation, and she definitely didn't look. So she was right, but for the wrong reasons.)

Also, she didn't actually point out my lifeline—she only mentioned it. In fact, she didn't point out ANY lines. I doubt she knew anything about palmistry at all. Additionally, she didn't ask if I were right or left-handed, essential for a palm reading. Pfffff!

The cards she dealt that I could see were the Chariot and the Four of Wands. The chariot indicates being pulled in two different directions and having to fight to keep things under control. It's a powerful Arcana card and it rates special mention. She didn't say anything about it. The Four of Wands indicates reaping rewards for hard work and for bringing community together. She didn't mention that, either. She also didn't say which cards were for the present and which were for the future.

Faker!

Now, I'm not saying that I'm an especially powerful psychic or even a psychic at all. I =am=, however, an expert at Tarot cards and I'm a passable palm reader. I've studied many different Tarot decks, many different Tarot spreads, and many different systems of palmistry. This woman didn't even come close to using any of them correctly. She was just giving vague patter, a showperson, entertaining tourists who want to say they got a reading from a real New Orleans psychic.

I was pretty sure this was going to be the case when I first sat down, so I didn't feel any animosity toward her and her business. But I couldn't quite let her get away with the deception, either, especially when it was so blatant.

When she finished, I asked to see the Chariot card. A little startled, she turned it so I could see. "Usually this card means inner conflict," I said casually. "Though this is a different deck than I'm used to. It has a centaur instead of chariot driven by opposing horses. I favor the Robin Wood deck, myself, but I first learned to read on the Ryder-Waite deck."

"Oh," she said blandly. "Yes. The Ryder-Waite deck is so traditional."

"Very," I said. "They like to deal the Death card in movies to be scary, even though the card isn't supposed to be scary, and it's always from the Ryder-Waite deck. Annoying."

I gave her a cheery wave and left.

Was I mean? Nah. She should have known I knew what was going on when the reading began.

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Michigan Wow

2026-05-06T03:31:58Z

We have some WOW news!

For the non-Michiganders in the room, our state senate stands at 19 Democrat, 18 Republican. One senate seat has been open, though, and the special election for it was today. If the GOP candidate took the seat, our senate would be tied 19/19, with the lieutenant governor (Democrat) the tie-breaker. In our state, legislation needs at least 20 votes to pass, so Republicans would have effectively had veto power by being able to withhold a vote to prevent a tie and the LT's ability to weigh in. Our house is GOP, so that would have meant a lot of trouble. Stakes are high.

The 35th district went for Kamala Harris by a tiny bit, and we were nervous this would be a squeaker.

Chedrick Greene, the Democrat, trounced the Republican candidate 60% to 38%.

!!

This is the EPITOME of over-performing. In fact, it's over-performing at max level! It follows the long-running pattern of Democrats flipping red districts or at least getting a higher percentage of votes than they did at the last election. But this time the percentage is HUGE. The Dems destroyed the GOP in a purple district in a state that went to the baboon last election.

And oh yeah--Greene is African-American. His opponent Jason Tunney is white, and middle-Michigan, shall we say, leans to the Confederacy.

The mid-terms are looking very, very bad for the baboon's GOP.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2026/05/05/michigan-35th-senate-district-special-election-results-chedrick-greene-jason-tunney/89954800007/

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It's Cheap!

2026-05-05T17:21:20Z

I've noticed that on local message boards, people always ask for a local business that will do some service or other for cheap. No one ever asks for a mid-priced service or "the best one in town, money is no object!" Always, it's the cheapest one. Price is the #1 concern.

One woman said she was planning a "micro-wedding," which apparently has way fewer guests but (the wedding industry hurries to mention) has all the trappings of a full-blown wedding. The bride was looking for a florist, but was having trouble because all of them have minimum order requirements for customized wedding bouquets, and she just didn't have time to buy flowers and make the bouquets herself. Did anyone know of a florist that would make a particular bouquet (she attached a photo of an orchid bouquet) for cheap? I had to laugh at her. She's basically asking if anyone knows of a bakery that will make and decorate three cupcakes based on a recipe she provides. No. Just, no.

In my experience, local businesses tend to charge about the same price as their competitors. If one was able to undercut all the others by being "cheap," they'd get all the business. And if "cheap" is your only criteria ... well, you get you pay for.

Still, it's cheap!

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Micro-Weddings?

2026-05-05T17:20:45Z

My previous post mentioned "micro-weddings." I looked them up briefly to be able to comment on them in the context of the post. Then, out of morbid curiosity, I read more about them. Turns out, micro-weddings are complete horseshit created by the wedding industry.

Are we surprised?

You would think from the name that a micro-wedding is a step above eloping. You get married at a courthouse or by a friend who got clergy papers online, with maybe one attendant per new spouse, then go to a restaurant or someone's home for some nice food and a bit of Costco cake. The idea is to have a wedding but not break the bank with a huge reception. Micro, right?

Of course not.

It seems that micro-weddings are for a mere 20 to 50 people. Also, the wedding industry is quick to say that you're supposed to have ALL the trimmings of a full-sized wedding. Dress, tux, custom bouquets, special boutonnieres, engraved rings, curated music, romantic reception at a unique or special location (like a rented winery, or perhaps a beach in Fiji) with fancy food, a decorated cake, and lively music.

Oh yes--the budget is anything under $20,000. (!)

I don't know about you, but spending $20,000 on a wedding for fifty people in a "unique" rented space doesn't sound to me at all "micro." It's blatantly obvious that someone out there created the idea of a micro-wedding as I described it in the second paragraph, and the wedding industry, terrified the idea would catch on, glommed onto it and loudly proclaimed that OF COURSE micro-weddings are the latest thing in economizing, but it's not a true micro-wedding without all the trappings of a full wedding.

That way, the only person who loses is the caterer. And the wedding couple, who spent the down payment on a house on their micro-wedding.

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Pickle Bucket Drummers

2026-05-03T21:31:53Z

I'm in New Orleans. I have made a decision:

I don't like pickle-bucket drummers.

They're all over the place in the French Quarter. You get out of earshot of one, and right into earshot of another. What about it bothers me? I LIKE drumming. When I went to Pagan gatherings, the constant drumming was soothing. I should like these too, right? Today I figured out what it is. The pickle bucket drums have only one tone: sharp and piercing. There's no mellower bass tone to balance this out. It's all PLOCK PLOCK PLOCK, and no BOOM BOOM BOOM.

I understand why pickle bucket drummers exist. Pickle buckets are free from any dumpster, so all you need is a pair of cheap drumsticks and a sense of rhythm. You can be a busker for nothing, which is important if you have nothing to start with.

This doesn't make the performance any more enjoyable, though.

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Blood Is Moving

2026-04-28T14:46:20Z

I can feel my blood move. Is this just me?

When I first sit up in the morning, I can feel my blood draining downward until my heart beats a little faster to rejigger it back into place. It's a strange sensation that's hard to describe. It's kind of an uneven change in pressure inside me. This part of my body feels a little fuller, that part feels a little emptier.

If I stop to think about it, I can feel my blood moving around when I'm sitting. It zips through my fingers, up my arms, down my chest. When I raise my hand, I feel the blood drain out of it.

I first noticed this when I had to have a dye injection for a medical procedure. The dye was heavier than my blood, and the med tech warned me that I'd probably feel it. I did. I could trace the dye's progress from the injection site and feel it branch off in different directions. After that, I also became aware of my own blood.

Have I always noticed this and only recently become cognizant of it? Not sure.

Can you feel yours?

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Morning Person No More!

2026-04-28T14:38:54Z

When I was teaching, I had to leave the house by 6:00 AM sharp, or I'd be caught in the horde of parents who have to drop their sweet little snowflakes off at school instead of riding the bus. I'm not good at getting up really early, so I set things up to let me sleep as late as possible. The night before, I always made a sandwich to eat in the car for breakfast, packed my stuff up, and showered. This allowed me to get up at 5:35.

Every school morning, the alarm went off and I rushed out of bed or I'd be off schedule. No snooze button, no languishing. Dead asleep to sixty miles an hour. Jump into my clothes, grab my sandwich and pack, bolt out the door.

This habit bled into my personal life. On days I woke up =without= an alarm (on a weekend, say), I always came immediately wide awake. This made it hard to sleep in, even if I'd been up late the night before. If I woke up after about six for any reason, I was up for the day. This was true even over summer break.

I thought this was a feature of my physiology. Some people wake slowly, some quickly. Whattayagonnado?

Then I retired.

I've spent the last ten months getting up when I please. At first, it was still by seven at the latest. But after a few months, I was waking up at 8:00 or even 9:00! Bliss!

When I wake up these days, it's a gradual process. I wake up a little, then go back to sleep. This process repeats a couple-three times. I dream a little more. Finally, I have to get up for the bathroom, if nothing else, so I do. I sit on the edge of my bed, slowly coming to full consciousness. I'll check my phone to see if any messages came in and see what the weather is. Finally, I head for the bathroom for all the normal morning stuff. But that's also slow! It's about 45 minutes from rising from bed to exiting the bedroom, and I still don't shower mornings. I haven't seen a sunrise since I stopped working.

I think =this= is my natural physiology, reasserting itself after 30 years of abuse!

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To Stage or Not To Stage

2026-04-27T15:42:58Z

Was the press dinner attack staged?

Honestly, I'm on the fence. So much suspicious stuff here. The Secret Service let several seconds go by before they snatched Trump away, as if they knew he wasn't really in danger. Trump was so calm afterward (when is Trump ever calm after a major conflict?) and tossing out sales pitches for his ballroom. Karoline Leavit's husband told a reporter that she needed to stay safe at the dinner moments before the shots rang out. (An odd thing to say to a table-mate.) The President, Vice-President, and upper Cabinet members were ALL present, but the usual practice is to keep them separated so a bomb attack or mass shooter doesn't wipe them all out at once. Kash Patel, who's supposed to be running the FBI, sat calmly in the audience after the shooting. Why wasn't he flying out of there with his phone pressed to his ear, talking to his own agency?

On the "it wasn't faked" hand, how do you find a patsy to play the gunman? Who would be willing to sacrifice their life for some baboon PR? Well, there probably are a few people out there, but there's also this—what if the gunman was captured alive (as he was)? Now the hired patsy is going to be grilled extensively by the Secret Service and FBI before going to prison for long, long time. What's stopping the patsy from confessing? What if he gets tired of sitting in a prison cell and spills the beans? That seems an awfully big risk.

So I guess I'm leaning toward it not being faked, and the suspicious stuff with the Secret Service and the FBI is chalked up to the loss of experienced personnel due to the baboon's constant firings.

Here's the thing: the reason we are even talking about a conspiracy here is because the baboon and his followers have lied so much and so often, we are all on high alert for yet more lies. Our default setting is mistrust. It will be a long time before we can trust again.

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Rating Systems: Perfection or Garbage?

2026-04-23T15:36:03Z

Can we talk rating systems?

This came up elsewhere. A short-term rental host was fishing for higher ratings by putting up a door sign that "translated" what the ratings meant. 5/5 meant nothing was wrong. A 4/5 meant there were several things wrong with the place but it was still okay. A 3/5 meant it was only barely tolerable. A 2/5 meant the place should never have been listed in the first place. A 1/5 meant you refused to cross the threshold because it was so awful.

Various people commented on what a rotten person the landlord was for trying to gimmick the system and make his place seem better than it was.

But ... not really.

At AirBnB, for example, a single 4/5 rating can "demote" you from Superhost status and cost you customers. A 3/5 means plenty of people will skip over your rental altogether.

Online rating demands perfection. If it isn't 5/5, readers tell themselves, "They did something wrong. I don't want to stay there/buy that/hire them. I'll find a 5/5." And it really hurts the business.

It doesn't help that some online reviewers take glee in dumping on short-term landlords or small businesses. "I could hear street noise. 3/5." "The garbage truck came through at 8 AM and woke me up. 2/5." "I found a human hair on the floor behind the toilet. 1/5." They see themselves as Anthony Bourdain reviewing a restaurant and need to get over themselves.

This is also true when a company asks you to rate employees, and the rating is used in evaluations. If you give anything less than 5/5 or 10/10, the employee is questioned. "What could you have done better? How can you improve?" Enough less-than-perfect reviews, and the employee can be fired. Never mind that some people will give the cable company 1/5 on service because they're mad the bill went up, something the employee has no control over.

When I gave my students instructions for a project or essay, I always pointed out that if they followed the directions to the letter, they were looking at a C. "What??? But if we did everything, why isn't it an A?" "A C means you meet the basic requirements. To get a B, you need to do better than that, with an interesting writing style or extra sources, for example. To get an A, you need to go way above and beyond and do something pretty awesome. Another way to look at it: if you follow the basic recipe on a package of chocolate chips, you'll get some average cookies. A C. If you refrigerate the dough before baking and sprinkle some kosher salt on them, you've got some GOOD cookies. A B. If you frost each cookie with home-made frosting and pipe on an individualized design based on the eater's favorite color, you have some EXCELLENT cookies. An A. Doing the minimum is never the road to excellence."

Rating systems for short-term rentals (and other companies) should be the same. A 3/5 or 7/10 should mean "It was good enough. I would stay there / hire them again." 4/5 or 8-9/10 should mean "Very nice place / service. Various little touches were helpful. I hope I can stay there /hire them again next time." 5/5 or 10/10 should mean "Fantastic! Above and beyond! I felt a king waited on by servants. I would climb over my own grandmother to stay there /hire them again."

But internet culture is already well-entrenched, and I can't see this happening. If it's not perfection, it's garbage!

So when you do rate someone or something, keep this in mind. If you would stay there or hire them again, give them a 5/5, and if there are things they could improve on, talk about it in the commentary part of your review. And if you would stay there or hire them again, say so at the end of your review.

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Punching Out the Nazis

2026-04-20T22:49:10Z

In West Hollywood, right-wing provocateur Ryley Niemi and a cameraman harassed a gay couple who had a baby. He pretended to be a reporter and asked them disgusting questions designed to get them angry. David Vullin, one of the couple, finally lost his temper and decked Niemi a good one.

Niemi gleefully edited the video and posted it on Instagram, and it "went viral." (Based on what comes next, I'm not sure this qualifies as "viral," but keep reading.) He also filed assault charges against Vullin.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/04/gay-dad-punches-right-wing-commentator-after-being-tricked-into-a-homophobic-interview/

Me, I have the feeling the charges won't go very far. This is West Hollywood, a major gay zone. Even if the DA presses charges, Vullin will almost certainly get a kiss on the wrist. And a Nazi got punched out. I'm always happy to see that.

But there's a little more.

Four days ago, just after this happened, Nutjob Niemi put up a GoFundMe page asking for $9,000. For what, I'm not sure, since it costs him nothing to file charges. But he did go viral, right?

Well, as of this writing, he's gotten 15 donations that have raised $1,725. The most recent donation came in more than 8 hours ago, an eternity in internet fundraising time.

On the other hand, the Vullin family has started a GoFundMe fund of their own to help with legal fees: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-david-secure-legal-representation-vdesk

The campaign went up one day ago, and they're trying to raise $30,000. As of this writing, they've had 365 donations totaling about $24,200. Ha! Fuck you, Nazi.

You can still donate to the family. Hint hint.

UPDATE: The Vullin fundraiser got so much activity that they raised the goal to $55k. They have $52k as of this update. The Nutjob fundraiser has gotten two whole more donations and now sits at $1,800.

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Imposing Poll Worker

2026-04-20T20:33:39Z

I'm retired.

This is an election year.

I'm a 6' tall, broad-shouldered white male with big arms, a shaved head, and a beard. In other words, when I draw myself up, I look imposing. My years in the classroom have also let me develop a scowl that makes people back up a step.

So I'm thinking I would make a good poll worker. It's the traditional hobby for retirees, after all, and I'm happy to play the heavy if someone tries to bully voters at the poll or interfere with the election.

Now I just need to figure out where to apply.

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An AI Confession

2026-04-20T17:40:49Z

I confess. I did it.

I used AI in my classroom. Long before it became A Thing, in fact.

How did I use it, you ask with narrowed eyes?

Lots of ways. I used it to generate quizzes. To create sub plans and "oh crap, I have to fill half an hour" activities. To generate pacing guides for new material.

And to grade essays.

Really? You mean those essays that teachers forbid students from using AI to write them? Those essays?

Yep. And I'm not being a hypocrite, either. I'm also not the only one who did it--and still is doing it.

But why? How did it work?

Here's the why. One day I collected a set of freshman essays: "How does Shakespeare use light and darkness as images in ROMEO AND JULIET?" It's an essay prompt I've given many times before, and there'd be nothing new in this set of essays. I had a headache, and I had just come off grading a pile of essays from a different class. The last thing I wanted to do was go through more of them. If only there were a way for someone else to grade this stuff.

Hmm ...

I called up a chatbot and uploaded my essay rubric to it. I told it to evaluate essays using said rubric, give a letter grade, and provide commentary. Then I pasted the essays into the chatbot window. In a few seconds, it spat out a complete evaluation for each: letter grade, rubric, and commentary. Wow. Just ... wow. The two things I disliked most about my job were 1) having to get up at five in the morning and 2) grading essays. In a blink, AI had wiped out one of those awful aspects.

Some caveats, though.

I didn't trust the AI that much, and anyway I needed to know how my individual students were doing as writers, so I looked over the AI's virtual shoulder by reading each essay on one screen and scrolling through the AI's feedback on the other.

Why then even bother with the AI, you ask? Because this method was still way, way, WAY faster. I didn't have to stop reading every other sentence to make comments; the AI made them for me. I read insanely fast, and can pop through a 2,000-word essay in about 60 seconds—if I don't have to slow down for commentary. I also didn't have to mark up the rubric because the AI did it for me.

I did check the AI's evaluation and comments to make sure I agreed with them. In well over 90% of the cases, I did. In those cases, I just sent the rubric and comments back to the student. In the cases I didn't agree, I went back and read the essay more closely to see what the problem was and did the evaluation myself. This only happened with one essay in ten or twelve.

This method cut my grading time down to a quarter of what it was. And there was an added bonus: sanity!

High school is when freshman learn to write full-blown introduction-multiple body paragraph-conclusion essays for the first time. My method for teaching them was to walk them through the first essay practically word-for-word. For the second essay, I backed away a little, and for the third essay, I backed away even more. By the end of the year, I was able to give them just the question and no help whatsoever. This method worked great! The students left my class able to write an entire essay on their own. But grading those things was torture. The early ones were almost all exactly the same, and even the later ones were tediously similar because they had the same prompt and drew their information from the same sources. And since they were mostly at the same level of writing skill, the feedback and evaluations were very similar. By the time I was done with one class, I was ready to bite bricks.

Essays that were more original and less lock-step had downsides of their own. I had to read those closely and carefully, looking for errors in logic and argument as well as content mistakes.

AI made all this a breeze. What a delight!

I used AI grading for about a year and a half before my retirement loomed. Now, barely nine months later, we're seeing AI leaping deeper into education in some horrifying ways. For example, a student can let an AI program log into the student's online classroom account, go through all the reading, lectures, slides, and videos, and complete every assignment in minutes. There are also programs that get around AI detection. Google Classroom, you see, has a widget that lets the teacher watch a fast-forward recording of a student's keystrokes as they wrote an assignment. The abrupt appearance of a big block of text tells you that the kid pasted in work generated somewhere else. I used this widget often—very handy when a kid vehemently denies using AI. But now there's a competing widget that will paste in text slowly, letter by letter, and make it look like it was typed in by a human. I'm sure there'll eventually be yet another widget that will detect this, after which there'll be still another widget to duck it. It's an arms race, and one I'm glad to sidestep.

The solution to this problem is obvious: have students do assignments with pen and paper. No way to use AI there! Teachers are already doing this, in fact. This method does have weaknesses. You can't give such assignments as homework, for one thing. I myself gave hand-written assignments as homework, and discovered more than once that a student had fed the thing into an AI and just copied the AI's responses by hand. This means losing a lot of class time to in-class writing. It's also not practical to have students complete research papers or other long assignments by hand. But this does work for in-class stuff, especially final exam essays.

Was I being hypocritical, forbidding my students to use AI when I was using it myself? Nah. For one thing, I'm not a student, and student rules don't apply to teachers. (It's weird how many people think otherwise.) My students also got the same feedback they would have gotten if I hadn't used AI. Finally, my students needed practice writing essays, but I definitely didn't need practice grading them.

Still glad I got out of the arms race, though.

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A Chill on Ice Cream

2026-04-18T18:28:48Z

Ice cream isn't always ice cream.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/articles/psa-favorite-grocery-store-ice-160000887.html

"Ice cream" has a legal definition, based on the amount of cream and fat solids in it. You have to check the label carefully. If it doesn't specifically say "ice cream," it isn't legally ice cream. It has too little cream or too much air in it. (Yeah, food companies whip air into their products to make it look like there's more food in the package than there actually is.)

There are also legally-defined graduations of ice cream. SUPER PREMIUM is the best, followed by PREMIUM, REGULAR, and ECONOMY.

And the companies do try to trick you.

Breyers, Blue Bunny, and Edy's all carefully mislead you, for example. The label says BREYERS CHOCOLATE or EDY'S TRIPLE FUDGE BROWNIE or TURKEY HILL MOOSE TRAKCS. Do you see the words "ice cream"? Nope! They let the flavor and the shape of the package and its placement in the freezer lead you to believe it's ice cream.

I admire the way Breyers touts TWO EXTRA SCOOPS on their label. Wow! What a deal! Um ... how big is a scoop, anyway? And how did they fit these two huge extra scoops into a package that's the same size the package has always been?

Equally fun is Turkey Hill's penchant for touting "Made With FARM FRESH Milk," drawing your eye to FARM FRESH (which has no legal definition) and away from the fact that it says MILK, and not CREAM (which does).

What about the companies that make high-end stuff? The gourmet stuff? The specialty stuff? They're ice cream, right?

Well ...

Ben & Jerry's has fallen from grace, if they ever had it. Their label doesn't say ICE CREAM at all. They do the BEN & JERRY'S CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH trick that Breyers and the other do. Oh, Ben! Oh, Jerry! What happened to you?

Häagen-Dazs does put ICE CREAM on the label, but despite their carefully-constructed reputation for being a high quality specialty treat, you'll notice it's not labeled PREMIUM. It's just regular ice cream.

Stroh's, on the other hand, has a reputation for being regular, workaday ice cream, but their stuff is all labeled PREMIUM ICE CREAM.

So if you want real ice cream, with a minimum of air and a maximum of actual cream, you need to check the label carefully. Stroh's is probably your best bet.

Are the other ones bad? Well, they don't TASTE bad. I guess it depends on how much it bothers you that companies try to cut quality and pretend they haven't.

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Cat Pet Politics

2026-04-17T20:35:20Z

Because I'm sick, I'm sitting on the couch a lot. The cats, who are black holes of endless, have decided that this is their chance to get All The Pettings.

But it's more complicated than that.

It turns out it's not enough to be petted. Each cat has to be the ONLY ONE being petting.

Case in point: I sit on the couch, and Dora senses her moment. She literally bolts across the room, claws scrabbling on the wood floor, and leaps into my lap. When I touch her head, her eyes close in ecstasy and she purrs like a motorboat on steroids. Bliss unlocked! She is forever happy.

Then Dinah notices what's going on. She herself isn't getting petted, and this unfairness cannot stand. She oozes quietly onto the couch and sidles over until she's pressed against my side. While still scratching Dora's ears, I pet Dinah's nose, her favorite pet-erogenous zone, and she is likewise sent into bliss-topia. Both cats are getting everything they want!

But what's this? Dora's eyes pop open she's hit with the horrific realization that DINAH IS GETTING PETTED TOO! Dora stares and glares at Dinah's ecstasy, even though Dora's own petting has continued uninterrupted. Her resentment grows until she swats at Dinah with a hiss. This gets her immediately and unceremoniously dumped off my lap with an undignified thump. She storms away, angry at me because I'm not petting her anymore.

Dinah uses the opportunity to take Dora's place. The nose-petting continues. More bliss! Meanwhile, Dora has taken to pouting across the room, but in less than a minute, her endless, demon-fed desire overcomes the irrational pouting, and she stalks back to the couch. Dinah shoots her a "nyah nyah!" look. Dora, who is incapable of oozing or sidling, flops noisily down on the couch next to me and looks pointedly at me. Just to see what happens, I pet both cats again. Dora sighs heavily. She will put up with sharing if there's no other way.

And ... oh noes! Dinah has seen that Dora has successfully wheedled her way back into the petting zone, a zone that is Not For Sharing. After some stares and glares of her own, she harumphs to her feet and indignantly stalks away.

Dora is unsubtle but not stupid. This is HER chance! She plops herself into my lap again. All the skritches are once again hers! Ha!

Then realization crashes over Dinah. She walked away from the perfect petting relationship! Remorse over her foolishness takes over. She meekly returns to the couch and curls up next to me within easy petting distance. Once again, I'm petting both cats.

And then Dora sees that Dinah is also being petted again! This can't ...

Well, this kept up for a while.

After four or five rotations, I had enough and dumped both cats off lap and couch. When they tried to return, I shook the spray bottle, sending them scrambling away. Everybody loses.

It's funny, but also a stupidly tragic metaphor for modern politics. For certain people, it isn't enough to get what they want--the other side has to lose everything. They're willing to give up something good if it means the other side will have something bad.

Own them libs!

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A Promise of a Proposal

2026-04-10T20:50:07Z

So Iran says it won't participate in peace talks unless Lebanon agrees to a ceasefire and a release of Iranian assets.

But ... how does that discussion not count as peace talks? Iran is talking about conditions for peace.

This kind of thing happens all the time. The media reports, "Politician A To Announce Bid For Presidency." Isn't releasing that statement already an announcement to run? A long-standing theme in advice columns is a woman who is upset because her boyfriend hasn't proposed, even though he's said he will do so soon. Isn't the promise to propose already a proposal?

This phenomenon has always puzzled me.

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Good Friday Creep

2026-04-03T15:42:58Z

A lot of people don't know what Good Friday is supposed to be. Good Friday is the day Jesus was crucified. By tradition, he was nailed to the cross at noon and hung there for three hours, whereupon he was taken down and entombed until he rose from the dead on Easter Sunday.

When I was in school, Good Friday was not a holiday. If you were Catholic, you were allowed to leave work at noon so you could go to church and sit vigil until three o'clock, at which point you were expected to return to work and finish out the day. Banks, stores, and libraries closed at noon and re-opened at three. I remember some of my elementary classmates being pulled out of school at 11:44. Some, not all. And those kids showed up to school in dress clothes, too. They went to church and arrived back at school a little after 3:00 so they could take the bus home at 3:15 and their parents could go back to work.

When I was in fifth or sixth grade, the schools started closing for a half day on Good Friday, probably because the teachers got tired of figuring out how to plan lessons that they couldn't hold the Catholic students responsible for. All the way through high school, we had a half day on Good Friday. It made for a chaotic day, since this was also the Friday before spring break, or Easter break, as we called it back then.

When I started college, we got Good Friday holiday creep. Businesses and banks started closing at noon and not re-opening until Monday morning. The university, which had ignored Good Friday entirely, also started closing at noon, meaning your morning classes were on, but afternoon classes were canceled, making a headache for professors who had a morning and an afternoon section of the same class.

Over the years, the creep continued. Places started closing all day on Good Friday, on the grounds that it wasn't worth it to show up for only half a day, and too many employees were taking a half sick day anyway. Schools followed suit. So did universities.

Now Good Friday is a full day off. It's NOT a government holiday, but lots of banks and credit unions are closed anyway. It's become an unofficial holiday on the level of Christmas Eve--not officially recognized by the government, but most schools and banks and many businesses are closed anyway.

This bothers me. Other religions haven't gotten a holiday added to the national calendar. We already have the Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter recognized as government holidays. Why is Good Friday allowed to sneak in, too? We don't have Ramadan creep or Eid creep or Beltaine creep. The new Good Friday shouldn't get special treatment either.

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Schadenfreude Day

2026-03-30T15:15:05Z

Today's Schadenfreude:

www.nbcnews.com/health/mens-health/rfk-jr-rotator-cuff-injury-treatment-shoulder-surgery-pain-what-know-rcna262741

RFK had to have rotator cuff surgery, the same kind I had a few years ago that turned my life into a misery for months and months. It's not a surprise, really. That video of him making an exercise ass of himself was almost certainly a strain on him. He's 72. Also keep in mind that video took many, many takes, so the exercise we see on screen is only a fraction of what actually happened. I don't know that his cuff was torn during the video, but it seems likely.

Anyway, he's in a sling. He claims he'll be back at work next week.

Ho ho ho.

It was three weeks before I was able to function well enough to work, and even then I was still on powerful painkillers. Everyone is different, of course, but if he's full-bore at work in only two weeks, I'll have to call it miracle--or everyone in the office is doing the job for him.

Cuff surgery is fucking painful, and when it isn't painful, it's uncomfortable. And when it isn't uncomfortable, it's inconvenient. He's in for a rough time.

I'm glad.

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