They’re bois
I took the cats to the vet today for the first time. Guess what? They’re boys. Which means by their behavior they’re gay boi’s! Whoo hoo, I get two gay bois to move in and enjoy sleeping on my bed, and they’re felines… just my luck. ;-)
Lets bend over a little bit farther
Well by now I guess we should expect it. So lets all grab our ankles and bend over really far and take it from the fucking companies who think they don’t get enough money.
In case your missing my non descript point, I’m referring to the Visa and Mastercard settlement. For quickies, Greedy Walmart and a few of their floundering friends got together and said “Hey, we’re getting screwed by these banks who are making a lot of money, lets sue em.” (Okay, a little bit of colloquiums added in, but all in all a pretty accurate rendering.)
For those who didn’t know how the credit and debit cards we are love are paid for, a lesson is in store. In the olden days long, long ago stores used to offer their own credit, so if you defaulted on a loan the store was out of the money, plus they had all the extra hassle of keeping track of the moines they were owed, and arranging to have the appropriate legs broken when the time came. At some point the banks and the merchants got together and came up with an agreement. The banks would shoulder the debt and take care of lots of the processing, in exchange the merchants would give the banks a discount on the merchandise sold to account for processing costs and bad debts.
Here is a disjunct in the bearing of risk that in my belief became a huge problem. Merchants have no restraints on what goods they push, if someone has a large credit line a merchant can push an expensive good without any thought if the ultimate credit extended is going to be repaid. The merchant gets paid irregardless if the bank gets paid. (Lets ignore charge-backs at the moment.) It’s in merchant’s interest to get you to buy something overly expensive, because they got paid. (This probably more than anything else is to account for lots of the spend happy (and economically good) times we’ve had; the US has a negative savings rate, that means as a whole we Americans borrow more money than we save.)
Okay, next thing is the banks came along with the goal of increasing charge card usage. (a term encompassing credit and debit cards) But, they realized to do this they needed to secure extra income to account for increased losses from the idiotic credit happy masses. So they came up with this wonderful debit card, which they bore much less of the risk. (Because it got deducted from actual currency, instead of being promised to be paid by the consumer in the future.) Since the banks had already gotten the merchants to sign onto the honor-all-cards policy, which requires that any Visa or Mastercard card be treated the same, they were a shoe in for the banks. (There even is a bank that built their business on the extra income from debit cards, and they’re not happy with the settlement.)
Of course the merchants caught wind of this and the large greedy ones (namely Walmart, which people need to stop shopping at, because its destroying America.) decided to sue on the matter, claiming they were paying money for the banks to assume risks, for Credit Cards, that the banks weren’t assuming, because the purchases were made with currency on debit cards. The small merchants also jumped on board, not realizing that they’ll need to rent more equipment to process the “cheaper” debit network transatctions.
So who’s to blame here? The banks are greedy, overall they want more money in interest from more credit cards. The merchants are greedy they want to make more money by breaking up the bank’s scheme that they benefited from in the form of higher consumer debt and higher spending.
So the conundrum comes down to this:
Here we’ve gotten back to the all important disjunct. Who assumes the risk? Everyone is supposed to pay a little bit of it, the merchants in the discount rate, the consumer in interest fees, the bank in lost profits. (okay, the last one is flimsy, but go with it.)
The merchants don’t have any incentive to make sure that the consumers they’re targeting can pay, the banks just have to take statistical guesses on things.
So now for a proposal:
The bank takes a straight processing fee of 20-40 cents for each transaction. If somewhere down the line the consumer defaulted on the loan, the bank would eat 25% of the default and then charge say 75% of that back to the merchant, as a penalty for selling to customers who in actuality couldn’t pay. The banks would shoulder part of the responsibility because they extended credit to someone who shouldn’t’ve had it.
This would likely do two things, rein in crazy merchants who push overly expensive shit on consumers who cannot afford it. It would also move the whole thing from spreading out risk for all the transactions out all over the place, and place them back in actual risk. Yeah, the logistics would be a little tricky, and would probably take a good five years to really get ironed out, but with computer technology today it could be done.
Hopefully, it would also get the banks out of offering way too much credit and causing people to get themselves into problems.
I know this is a pie in the sky dream, and I skipped over my chance to comment on this case. (I was contacted by Visa and Mastercard’s lawyers.) But I’m getting fucking sick of bending over and holding my ankles — and I’m a bottom…
Feline Wedding
I think having cats is a lot like having a ideal boyfriend. They’re they’re there looking wantingly at you when you first get home, they always want more of the bed when your sleeping, and they’re great cuddlers.
Of course, they also need TLC at times when its inconvenient for you, but all in all its a give and take.
With the exceptions of good sex and intelligent conversation they satisfy most of my needs for a boyfriend, at least to a minimally acceptable extent. In addition there is no bullshitting when they’re happy or unhappy… They’re happy and they start purring, they’re angry, and you get clawed to death.
There’s gotta be something more to marriage and a good relationship than just fulfilling needs. If I went around and proposed to marry every person and thing that fulfilled my needs, I’d be convicted of polygamy to several Starbucks, none to many restaurants, and a Krogers or two.
Marriage, and relationships leading to marriage really have to mean something, but I admit, I don’t really know, because I’ve not been there. Society recognizes it, and we’ve got 1049 federal laws to codify our recognition.
Why the hell do people get married in a drive through in Los Vegas? If its something thats so special, shouldn’t it merit more than the same architectural feature than as where you get your Big Mac and French (not Freedom) Fries?
Here is my conundrum.
I’m invited to a wedding of a high school acquaintance, it just happens though that my sister is friends with her. She’s two years younger than me. Plus, the her and the guy she is marrying don’t really get along that well.
The way my sister describes it is all about the show and having a picture perfect wedding for her. I’ve only been to one other wedding and I had really strange hair similar to this, but it was about having a nice wedding for the bride and groom.
My sister and I have already discussed when the divorce between them is going to be, my sister thinks it’ll be in 18 months, I’ll give it 24. Most of the bride’s friends think the same thing, just varying on how many months it will take them to file, but not if they will file.
So I’ve been debating if I should go to the wedding. If they truly loved each other and they would be good for each other I’d go. But as it stands, the whole fucking thing is making a mockery of what a wedding should be about: love, life long commitment, sharing, and support. This wedding only satisfies at best two of these four things.
So should I support this disparagement of an institution I have no ability to partake in myself? The bride is making a mockery of everything I hold dear in a relationship. God dammit she’s only 19 or 20, how can you make a commitment at this point that should last you for 60 years? When I was 20 (not too long ago) I had issues deciding on and committing to my major in school, a trivial matter compared to marriage.
I want to wish her well, but I’ve gotta be honest to her; this isn’t what I can in my heart support. If its the real thing she can wait till she is 22 or 23, its not going away. But if its not the real thing, then she’s saved herself a mistake.
So I’m not going to this wedding. And I’ll stick to my commitment ceremony and civil unions thank you, if marriage is going to be pooped on like this.
Passing Kindergarden
I hate suburbia. Not a dispassionate dislike, I HATE it.
Maybe its not even exactly suburbia I hate, but this new faux-old suburbia that is so prevalent south of Dayton where I now live.
Its like living in a crappy version of Disney World, all facaded and terra-formed and fundamentally fake. There is a tree there because a designer decided there should be a tree there. Fields and fields of the cultivated weed wrap around our houses attempting to beautify and naturalize them, but in actuality they require hoards of chemicals to stay alive to our standards.
We are pretentious self-centered creatures determined to demand that the world we once shared with our fellow creatures bend and contort to service us. If a bear came into our living rooms and started reorganizing it to fit her up coming young, we’d shoot her.
You know maybe nuclear/chemical/biological war would be a good thing. Place this planet back into a virgin state to be reworked, perhaps by creatures who have respect for the planet and sharing.
You see city folk can share. Hordes of them get on public transportation and get to where they’re going. It doesn’t matter if there are people of all different backgrounds and socioeconomic classes crammed in together, they all get along; they passed and continue to pass kindergarden by sharing.
Now, if you tried this with a bunch of suburbanites, all hell would break lose and they’d start WWIII. (or WWIV as we don’t know when or if WWIII has started.)
Cities are true, raw and gritty. There is no facade and people share, plus it doesn’t try to be Disney World.
Hmm.. I wonder if I’ve passed Kindergarden……
Depressive Ramblings
Its scary to be dependent on medication. I’ve been on Effexor XR… since well Novemberish.
With the move from my apartment and work schedule change (same week, great fucking planning Nick.) I’ven’t taken it since Friday.
Four missed Doses; 600 milligrams of chemicals not pumped into my veins. (Save the amount that just gets crapped out.
Okay, the reason this is a problem is I just blue up at a bitchy voice person. I then called a supervisor over, and as this was happening the voice person hung up. I threw my flag down, when the supervisor asked what happened, I used some choice words to describe the caller in my loudest voice and I got written up.
This is just a strange problem trying to determine which one is really me? The bitchy person or the polite playful one?
They’re the same except for some drugs.
I feel incredibly lonely right now.
At this very moment I would give about anything to be snuggling with someone who or fuck the over long euphemistic descriptions. I want to be cuddling with Shawn.
Scary thing is I had to look up his last name today, but thats probably a good thing.
Yea for the fucking depressing! it reduces me down to wanting those primal things.
I’ve been chatting with Andy, wanting him to be this drop in replacement for Shawn, but somehow more permanent.
When the fuck am I going to be over him? I simultaneously hate and love ever meeting him.
I love just that we got to spend together and that he let me know whats possible.
I hate it cuz it still hurts.
I’d cut off my left pinky if it would make this hurt stop for any descent period of time. Fuck, it might even be good as a distraction, but the medical bills and the counseling would be a bitch.
I’m still stuck pondering that question. Why do we, do I have a demanding desire to have a significant other in our/my life? Furthermore how do those who don’t seem to mind that they’re single get there?
In other random ramblings people have been telling me to write a novel, and now I’ve got a topic so….. So I’m going to start doing that.
I never thought I was too material of a person. I never wanted to own something to own it. It all seemed very utilitarian. I needed somewhere to put my TV, VCR, Stereo, and TiVo. (Which were all gifts from family or hand me downs.) I wanted a kitchen table so I had somewhere to eat besides in front of the television, so I bought a kitchen table. I get books to read and think about, but all in all it didn’t seem like I owned too much stuff.
Then, I moved.
Now it seems like I have WAAAAAAAAAY too much stuff. I don’t want to get rid of it all, some of it I’ll sell, and some of it I’ll pitch. (That which isn’t worth the time to sell, because I doubt anyone will buy it off of eBay.)
Hmm… I’m sure I’ll have more meditations on the meaning of too much stuff later, but right now I need to go unpack. ;-)
Internet Tax Insanity!
From Secrets of Internet Sales Tax:
He described a scenario in which an Illinois resident, using a California credit card based out of a New Jersey bank, purchases a tangible piece of personal property from a Florida company as he crosses that state’s border on his Wi-Fi phone and then specifies that the item be shipped to his aunt in Massachusetts. Who should collect sales tax revenue in this scenario? The answer is clear as mud.
Come ON! For Christ sake, lets make this reasonably simple. In the case of physical goods, tax it where its shipped to. In the case of electronically delivered goods tax it at the Credit Card billing address. For 99.9% of transactions this will end up billing the right tax and getting it to the right state. The other times it doesn’t it’ll just be wrong, and everyone is going to have to deal with it.
Don’t get me wrong this is only part of the problem, (read the article for some more) but this is an absurd example, and while it might be interesting its never going to be perfect, but It’ll be close enough.
Schrodinger’s cat intrigues me. Its a quantum physics problem so bare with me while I butcher this example.
What you do is take a cat (anyone will do but I’m rooting for the troublemaker William.) and place it in a box where we cannot see or observe him. We also place a devices that in a certain period of time will either dispense either a poison or food, there s a 50/50 chance of either being dispensed. Then we wait. Given that cats are finicky eaters, I recommend waiting an extensive period after the device goes off, ignore the silent scratching noises.)
Now, guess is the cat dead from the poison or alive? (Assume the cat has sufficient O2) Both and neither. For all we know the cat doesn’t exist in the box because we cannot see it. For al we know the cat invented a teleporter and is now on an Egyptian cruise enjoying gourmet prepared Fancy Feast. (Remember the Egyptians thought cats were sacred.) The point is we cannot know about the cat because we cannot observe it.
But when we get curious and look in we by observing the cat either kill it or bring it to live. (Whoever said that the cat’s curiosity killed the cat?)
It is the interaction of viewing the cat that is important not what happened before or what happened after.
I’ve got this jumble of thoughts I’m thinking of in no particular order.
- When I had lobster in New England on the WSKG tour and loved it; but then going back several years later, I had l Lobster again and found it repulsive.
- Dating Shawn during January, but after breaking up with him seeing him at the Midwest BLGTA conference and there was no spark.
- Visiting my old home town and feeling strange and alien, and non-belonging, where there once was belonging.
- Comparing the success of Lambda last year with the failures this year.
- Thinking of the great growth inducing therapy sessions I had with Jo, and wanting them to continue.
- The night before Louise, my dog died and the role reversal of caregivee to caregiver I experienced.
These are all ethereal events; they exist only in memory. Any attempt to recreated the past experiences fails because the relationship between me and the other actor can never be the same. It has happened, to recreate it cannot be done, because both parties have changed therefore the interactions can never be the same.
As much as I want to relive those moments, I cannot because I am no longer who I once was. Going back is like attempting to unpeel an onion. Once the onion has been peeled, its peeled. Period.
A time machine that goes backwards through your life would ultimately be unfufilling because while you can go back and see something that you once did, you can never experience it the same way again.
Politically Incorrect
I liked the show. I even understood his off color comment after 9-11-01. But thats not what this is about.
First culprit, race specifically the great white/black divide in this country.
I was shocked and appalled at the New York Times journalist that lied and plagiarized to an obscene extent.
Another personal case. I used to manage at a McDonald’s. We had a new black employee whom we shall call Cuprick. When he first started working there he was an excellent new employee, and I "took him under my wing" and pushed him and made sure things were good for him.
One night his uncle came by and said his mom was sick with breast cancer and they needed to leave to visit her. I forget the specific incidents but he used his sick, then dead mother excuses to get off work for many days over the next month and a half. This culminated in one day his mother walking in and wanting to know where Cuprick was. We told her he wasn’t scheduled, and then began to inquire if perhaps Cuprick has another family member who he might consider his mother. She said no. We asked if she was dead, but she looked alive also.
My store manager didn’t fire him for this. although he eventually got fired after stealing money from customers.
One more personal case. Another black employee at my current job has apparently successfully lied to and/or sweet talked the manager into getting a fixed schedule which pushed me out of hours that I had wanted to work.
There is an obvious thread here. African American males deceiving to get ahead. But one more story to add is in order.
My insurance plan through work covers a $350 pair of glasses every two years. Somehow I picked out a $494.88 pair of glasses. So I had to pay 144.88. (a $10 copay) for reasons beyond the scope of this eJournal, the insurance company denied the claim. So I got a voicemail about it and low and behold the glasses dropped in price to $289. So me and my insurance company got overcharged $205.88.
Yeah I know what your thinking I have a young black male optometrist.
No. He’s a middle aged white man who advertises to operate his business on "Christian Principles."
So the way to work through this is to simultaneously apply and not apply stereotypes. Of course this leads to schizophrenia and other mental illnesses so I don’t recommend following it.
So what am I stuck with? Lets not over glorify stereotypes. They’re useful that why they still exist, but we’d get closer to an idea "utopia" if we could judge people on who they really are and not how they look.
I think this is part of why having blue hair is so interesting; you get interesting responses from people. Its also why I found Black Like Me was so interesting because we got to read an outsider’s response to being black.
This is part of why being out for some is a conundrum. I have the option to be out and possibly be discriminated against or to be closeted and not be discriminated against.
But, to me it is irresponsible and cowardly to be closeted. First of all it dimishes visibility but it also is being untrue. A black person (or pick many other protected classes) has no option to be closeted.
If we GLBT people as a community allow ourselves to be in and out when it is convenient for us it creates false stereotypes but also deprives us in taking responsibility and pride in who we are.
Black people cannot look white (okay, Michael Jackson excepted) if we want to be taken seriously should we ever allow ourselves to step back in the closet?
love:lonelynesss::life:death
What happened with me and Shawn?
I’ve spent the last four months pondering what went wrong, how we didn’t fit, if I scared him with the "L" word, or was he honest with what he told me?
I’m not quite sure that I’m hurting. No, I’m not hurting like I used to, I’m more just confused. I don’t want to fuck up again. I don’t want to put myself through this multiple times.
Maybe, the reason this whole thing is worth it is because it will at some point end.
So then is it right to attempt to limit your pain? If its only worth it if you are true and open to being hurt then if by limiting your hurt are you being less honest with the guy you’re dating?
I know I’m alive. The pain I feel in relation to Shawn reminds me of that. I am hurt period. It will be something that will follow me for a long while. But, I also know I deserved him, someone of his caliber, his honesty, hist intelligence.
I know because I’m still hurt I’m still alive and I was live when I was with him.
I refuse to be dead inside.