Page 3 – “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

September 3, 2024

DragonCon ’24

I think this is the end of DragonCon for us. This year was TERRIBLE.

We got Saturday passes only, since we just wanted to shop and get a couple of autographs.

WELP. That was a bust. The line to get into the Mart was 2+ hrs. It was doubled up on the sidewalks, wrapped around the building several times AND serpentined through the loading dock.

Needless to say, we did not get in.

We did not get to see our vendor friends that we only get to see at Con. We did not get to shop. We did not get to see our comics and author pals. Nothing.

DragonCon is notorious for overselling. The owner is a money grubbing asshole who does not give a single shit about the con, only the money he makes from it. He does not care about vendors, guests or attendees. If this convention cared, it would not be the dumpster fire that it is. As I’ve stated before, it must be nice to have a business that makes MILLIONS with no staff.

When people complain, the standard con response is “oh, well, we do the best we can!” Right.

Well, people are certainly complaining now. There are several forums/groups that are chock full of vendors, guests and attendees who are vociferously complaining about the shitshow that we witnessed this year. I hear it was the same last year – we skipped, so we were unprepared.

Not only is it unpleasant and unsafe for guests, the vendors that must load-in and -out of this con spend pretty much a whole day just waiting to get into the dock.

It is perfectly clear that putting comics, pop art, vendors and authors all in the same building is not working. This convention needs to spread out these tracks like it used to be, in order to have more access for the attendees. But even with that, this convention needs to have a cap that is not whatever it is now. I’ve heard 80k, and I think that’s about 20k too many people. Every single area was overcrowded.

When the bulk of the con is either walking, standing in 90 degree heat in a line or dodging projectiles thrown by drunk people, that is not much of a con. Panels were pretty much inaccessible as well, with lines wrapping around the hotels. On top of that, the Walk of Fame (that is now run by a third party) has become too pricey for most people. $60 for an autograph from a NOT FAMOUS person outside one show is pretty fucking ridiculous. It was $40 2 yrs ago.

In the Olden Days™ (pre 2010s), the con was bustling and there were crowds, sure, but not like this. Also, we RARELY had fighting, people throwing projectiles from hotel balconies and other such jackassery. In all our years of going, we only saw one blackout drunk guy throw a beer bottle from the second floor of the Hyatt. That’s IT.

This convention refuses to hire security or any other needed staff, which is the main issue. When you cram 80k people together, you fucking need REAL security, not some con slave with a radio. DUH. This seems pretty obvious to me. But staff is not hired because the owner is a money grubbing ASSHOLE (as previously mentioned). Hells bells, they won’t even fund a proper green room for celebrities! They feed them hotdogs and other junk because “there’s no money” for a properly catered room. BULLSHIT. I’d be ashamed to run a multimillion dollar convention and have such a shitty green room!

I am so disappointed in this convention. It used to be our big event of the year. People go now just to stay in their rooms and party. That is NOT why I go to cons! I want to see the panels! I want to shop! I want to be able to afford getting the whole SNW cast to sign our poster. But DragonCon is not interested in doing any of that. I can stay home and party with friends. I don’t need a $500/nt hotel room for that.

So, I guess we’re done. I am really sad about that. But so many of our friends have already stopped attending, it’s not like we see THEM there, anyway. Sigh. I tell you, if they limit ticket sales and fix the logistical issues, we might consider attending again, but I seriously doubt anything will change. What would help is that if you are a vendor/author/artist and are sick of this shit, PLEASE SAY SOMETHING. Go to the groups/forums and BITCH. It might encourage this convention to fix its shit. Other conventions can manage it, why not this one? (Answer: GREED)

July 23, 2024

Writing this Summer

My blogging has been sparse this summer! Mainly because I’ve been busy with reading, keeping this place going and rebuilding our deck!

Pretty much every weekend has been dedicated to working on the deck for the last 3 months. We are not fast, but we are VERY meticulous! We are 95% done, only the stair rails remain as far as construction. We’ll have to put lattice on the base to completely finish, but we’re taking a break from the deck to pursue other things for at least a month. Probably two. Anyway, here is a shot of where we are – we are SO proud of our hard work!!

If you’d like to see ALL the refurb photos, please to be perusing the Google Drive.

In other news, I’m having a LOT of VSG troubles. I’ve begun throwing up in addition to getting the spits, which is a new development. It’s not often, but I’ve never had the spits for an hour and/or thrown up before. I looked up “throwing up years after VSG” and found that this could be gallbladder issues, which are fairly common. My nails changing into soft, peeling messes coincide with this new tummy issue, so I think I’m also having vitamin/mineral absorption issues as well. Which makes sense, I can only take my vitamins occasionally since they make me nauseous and/or make me throw up. Blood tests are called for. I’ll get them once we have taken care of the Ranger ($1000) and Shasti ($500 blood tests + checkup).

I’m not saying much about politics, other than to say I think the Democrats have lost their damn minds. OF COURSE I’ll vote for Harris, but I am very concerned that many ::cough white men cough:: will not be able to manage a vote for a black woman. OTOH, if we do manage to pull it off, seeing the Orange Shitgibbon lose to a black woman will be SAWEET. At least until the civil wars start. Sigh.

I’m reading the Scalzi Old Man’s War series and enjoying it a lot. Highly recommend!

Enjoy the rest of the summer, y’all. Stay hydrated!

July 13, 2024

iPhone Photo Format Issues

PSA for iPhone users!! Regarding PHOTOS.

I’ve been harangued by HEIC files of late and we figured out WHY. Apple has instituted “high efficiency” mode for photos both in the camera AND inside messages. Annoying, yes, yes it is.

SO to turn off this HEIC crap, go to the camera settings:
settings -> Camera -> Formats -> change from High Efficiency to Most Compatible. That’ll give you JPGs. See screenshot.
**Please read the description about certain types of photos and video regarding HEIC below the choices.**

ALSO NOTE: this will not stop messages from sending HEIC files. It is a hard wired default now. Because Apple is run by morons. However, if you EMAIL photos, they will be jpgs. GO FIGURE.

If you are sent an HEIC file (that you can’t do SHIT with), PREVIEW now has EXPORT, so you can open in Preview and export as a jpg. This is on a Mac, of course, not your phone.

NOW to turn off that idiotic “Live Photo” (saves THREE low quality images that are shite and take up 3x the space for images you can’t do anything with):

Settings -> Camera -> Preserve Settings -> scroll all the way to the bottom and TURN ON Live Photo. Counterintuitive, as usual with Apple. This PRESERVES your setting of turning that shit OFF inside the camera app, otherwise it will keep turning it back ON.

So, now your photos are jpgs (except in messages) and Live Photo will be turned OFF permanently.

You’re welcome.

March 3, 2024June 3, 2024

Rich Girl

You’re a rich girl, and you’ve gone too far
‘Cause you know it don’t matter anyway
You can rely on the old man’s money
You can rely on the old man’s money
It’s a bitch, girl, but it’s gone too far
‘Cause you know it don’t matter anyway
Say money but it won’t get you too far
Get you too far
Rich Girl by Hall and Oates

UPDATE 5.26.24: Article about the massive loss of wealth in Atlanta ($1.25 billion) from corporations buying property on Rough Draft.

UPDATE 6.2.24: Substack piece by Matt Stoller about the monopolies controlling housing begin BUSTED by the FBI this week. Hopefully you can read most of it – Substack is odd. (Outline: The corporation Cortland, that owns 85 THOUSAND rental units in 13 states, is being busted by the FBI for unfair practices and the software it uses, RealPage, is being investigated for cartel-like control over and price fixing via the rental companies who use it. I hope this leads to real legislation that bans corporations owning single family homes and limits the number of apartments as well. And I hope RealPage gets the shit kicked out of it and the owners jailed.)

I had an exchange with a wildly out of touch rich girl the other day on FB. A friend posted this meme:

I’ll post all the screen shots at the end, but for discussion, I’ll be copying her comments [MB] and posting my retorts [AP], not necessarily exactly as I did in the original post, but mostly copied and edited w/ this: [snipped]. Anything new in my retorts will be italic. The egregious part of her nonsense I’m responding to will be BOLD. Ok, got it? Here we go!

MB:
Are you okay with taking on the liability personally. Most LLCs can be pierced. Getting a loan for an individual in the 5-16 unit range is nearly impossible -> not to mention landlords don’t understand how to manage 50 units and below > causing distress properties. A corporation provides benefits to the employees and makes profit, but for the most part they do upkeep the property > which is something an individual won’t do because they just hire contractors.
Just food for thought. You would also have a bigger housing crisis in cities without corporates because there would not be any housing. An individual can’t have more than 4 mortgages…

AP:
The corporations now own most of the rental properties available ANYWHERE and they make it nearly impossible to rent. It took my friends 18 months and thousands in application and viewing fees (non refundable, of course) to find a place. They were routinely rejected [snipped].

It is fallacy that corporations take better care of properties! They’ve had to replace a toilet [snipped] themselves, because the corporate landlord refused to fix anything.

What you are missing is that THERE IS NO HOUSING AVAILABLE because the corporations won’t rent to anyone. There are so many empty houses that squatting has become quite common. My friends had TWO different houses lined up, only to find that squatters had set up housekeeping in them and the corporation could not evict them w/out due process. [snipped] The corps don’t care if they rent the houses or not. They are just a write off if they are empty or full of squatters.

If you think having corporations control 90% of rental homes and having no available affordable starter homes is of benefit, I invite you to cruise around S Dekalb and have a look at how successful that notion really is. If we lose this home, we are SCREWED. We’ll never find another house to rent because of our credit. Nevermind that we have never been late a single time in 10+ yrs, that won’t matter at all. We can’t afford to buy when everything is $400k+++. How that is better for us and everyone else in our position is beyond me. ??

Now is where the lecturing and amazingly tone deaf bullshit begins:
Continue reading “Rich Girl”

February 22, 2024February 22, 2024

Spring and Other False Starts

As we enter late February, we here in the South are now getting our False Springs. For those unfamiliar, False Spring™ is when temps jump up into the 70s and the sun shines and it’s just LOVELY outside. The redbuds bloom, the daffodils and paperwhites pop up and your brain says “Yay! It’s SPRING!”

Only to get freezing cold a week later and perhaps snow. Welcome to the South!

I am enjoying our first False Spring™. It makes me want to actually go out of the house and do things!

It also makes me think of other false starts I’ve had. Sigh. MANY MANY false starts. The most recent being a kitchen career. I managed it for 8-9 months, and I’m proud of that, but it’s not something I’ll go back to. My hands simply cannot take cutting hundreds of pounds of produce every day. I liked the job, actually, but my old body did not. Prep is for the young! I’m not going to get into the other false starts, that will lead to a rabbit hole of melancholy and I do NOT need that.

I just took a tiny little food plating class on domestika.com. It was on sale for $7 and there’s a 25% off Rakuten, so I said WHY NOT? I was an OK class, perhaps better for complete newbs. The girl was ok but her speech pattern ended every sentence as a question? You know that kind of speech? It’s endemic in millennials in particular? Yeah. And her advice on how to edit food shots was to use a PHONE with various apps. LOL LOL LOL! I actually DID laugh at this. Yeah, sure, use your fucking PHONE for editing if you plan to use online only, which apparently is all she does. A true pro who works in REAL media would NEVER use a phone for editing. You can take pretty dang good pix with a phone, but you need PHOTOSHOP to edit. Period. She also talked too much about Pinterest. Clearly she is all about being an “influencer” which I think is idiotic. Anyway, aside from those annoyances, the class was ok. I might take another since they are, like, $5.

Got Romeo’s brakes done – to the tune of $600. My mechanic told me $300, but neglected to be clear that it’s $300 PER PAIR. Sigh. He also pulled nails out of my tires and put the worst of the lot on the back. He also diagnosed my pressure sensor issue to ONE dead sensor, which is great since they are fucking $170 ea. The tires are toast, that’s the next big expense. I don’t feel bad about this, since we’ve spent thousands on that damn Ranger. A couple of grand on Romeo for NECESSITIES is fine with me. I’m going to try to keep the tires to $500-600. I might get the Michelins I was eyeballing, if Tire Rack has them on sale or something, but I’ll probably have to go a step down from those. My main need is wet grip and a quieter ride. These crappy Tiger Paw ones are loud and have zero grip. We hates them!

I’m thinking of Dave today. No reason, really. I was thinking about automation of our house and how much that would’ve helped Dave. I really wish he’d lived to see the beauty of smart phones and how much can be done with them. I know another blind guy, and his iPhone enables him to message and use apps like everyone else. Dave has been gone over 17 years. Here is his memorial page, if you’re interested. Can’t believe it’s been that long.

Which brings me to this: APRIL 1ST, WE’LL HAVE OUR 20TH ANNIVERSARY! Can you believe that?? Celebrations will be had! We got married in 04, right after buying Maplehurst. Here are a few pix and here is the VERY amusing story.

Guess that’s it for the brain dump today. I hope you enjoy the Tale of the April Fool’s Wedding and the nice weather of False Spring™ #1. :) The image is all my wedding rings! Yep, ALL of those!