Opening Day

As I write this, I’m sitting in the house. Not MY house. THE house. As in the part of a theater where the audience sits. For the first time in nearly two years, I’m attending a members’ meeting of my local community theatre. The meeting is about as boring as I remembered these meetings to be, but I don’t even care. It’s one more step on the road back to something resembling a post-Covid normalcy.

I know we’re not at normal yet. Every day brings worrisome news of some new variant that’s more contagious, more lethal, or both. And at the same time, I’m sitting maskless amongst a group of community theatre actors. And if you know anything about “community theatre actors,” you know that that’s a synonym for “older than dirt.” Let me put it this way: I’m a veritable whippersnapper in this crowd. These are presumably the most at-risk folks, but we couldn’t stay away.

At the same time, as California has officially reopened, the paranoia and neurosis run deep. At my workplace—a college—we’ve been informed that, come August, we will be back to business as usual. In keeping with the state and county guidance, we will allow the public back on campus, we will forego mask requirements, and even social distancing will be a thing of the past. Which would all be a lot more impressive if we hadn’t had to create the fall schedule back on March. As it is, the college will be open, but most of the classes remain online. Fall, then, will be a nice, liminal sort of semester—a transitional zone between sheltering in place and resuming normal, public human interactions.

A lot of people don’t see it that way, though. They’re kind of panicking at the thought of interacting with the unmasked public. Have they been vaccinated? For the most part, yes. But when you point out that the CDC has declared that vaccinated people are essentially safe—no need for masking, no need for distancing—you’re met with greater of lesser degrees of hysteria. “It’s not 100% safe!” Well, no, it isn’t, but, then again, you realize nothing is, right? You weren’t “100% safe” at work before Covid-19, either. At some point, you just have to start living your life again, right?

Here’s the thing that gets me: All through the awful year of 2020, as the Moron-in-Chief railed against medical science and insisted that the coronavirus would just disappear like a “miracle” and peddled snake-oil cures and advised people to drink bleach—all through that time, the non-brainwashed among us pleaded with people to listen to the doctors, listen to the science. Well, now the science is telling us that we can venture forth without masks, we can stop social distancing, we can get back to our lives—and people don’t want to hear it!

I know that people are nervous. I’m sympathetic—I really am. But in the end, you have to take a plunge sometime. The time has come.

Toucan, But You Can’t

The more I think about it, I’ve come to realize that watching Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970s gave me a highly unrealistic expectation of the likelihood of encountering a toucan.

And, before you ask, No. I had no such thwarted expectations of meeting a leprechaun. Or, for that matter, a giant sentient pitcher of Kool-Aid. I mean, I wasn’t stupid! I knew that those things weren’t real. And as for tigers and rabbits, well, those were comparatively commonplace. One could see tigers at any zoo, and rabbits might even show up around the neighborhood. So I harbored—subconsciously, yes, but also definitely—a belief that one could very likely run into a toucan down any random street in Queens. I mean, the kids in the commercials certainly took the bird’s presence in stride.

I’m retrospect, I think much of my general dissatisfaction with life can be traced to such early disappointments.

Emergency Procedures

Emergent Biosolutions has emerged as more of a problem in the realm of coronavirus vaccine production. The company has won contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government to produce vaccines developed by Astra Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Very few doses of any vaccine, though, have been distributed because the company’s quality-control levels fall short of your average meth lab.

Actually, I take that back. Walter White would never accept such shoddy manufacturing practices.

There’ve been all manner of production snafus, most notably cross-contamination of the two different vaccines. Apparently, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup theory of vaccine production didn’t fly with government regulators.

And while the rest of the world has become adept at basic hygiene over the last 18 months, Emergent employees still display some lapses.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that squirrels have taken up residence in the company’s cafeteria.

I would like to formally offer my own home as a production facility for vaccine production. Sure, I’m not the cleanest fellow in the world. Maybe I haven’t changed my bedsheets since the Million Nazi March in Charlottesville—I’m protesting! But, hey, my kitchen can’t be that much filthier than Emergent’s. And I’ll let the government rent it out for pennies on the BioSolutions dollar!

#Trendwatch

 Back in the day, before our reboot, we used to do an occasional feature called “Trendwatch.” We would go to Yahoo! and see what the trending stories were, mainly as a way to test our knowledge of pop-culture and current events: Do we know why the thing trending is trending without actually clicking on the link.

We wanted to revive the practice, but Yahoo! is SO 2012. All the kids these days are on Twitter, so “Trendwatch” will now become #Trendwatch, a review of the top trending topics on Twitter. The advantage being that maybe that hashtag makes things searchable and will expose us to all new followers! 

That is how these things work, right?

Anyway: Number 1: #JacobdeGrom Well, we know what this is about. You will recall our earlier discussion of Mets’ pitcher and resident super-alien Jacob deGrom. He started the game tonight against the San Diego Padres. He was his usual brilliant self: Six innings, one hit, no runs, ten strikeouts. As I watch the game now, the Mets’ bullpen is doing their best to throw the game away, but deGrom continues to dominate.

Number 2: #SmackDown I assumed this referred to what people want to do when listening to the ravings of Marjorie Taylor Greene, but it turns out it’s a wrestling thing. Or “wrestling” thing. Or wrestling “thing.” Anyway, it’s apparently on TV tonight, so watch if you’re into that sort of thing.

Number 3: #spacesgottalent The description: “Musicians are throwing it back to the 2000s as they perform for a panel of judges on spaces.” I first read that as “. . .in space,” and I thought, “I have no idea what that is, but it sounds incredibly cool.” Then I read it correctly as “…on spaces,” and I thought, “I have no idea what that is.” But whatever it is, musicians are performing on it! So… watch if you’re into that sort of thing.

Number 4: #TheLastDriveIn I think this is a series on Shudder, which I think is like Netflix for horror movies. . .  I thought Netflix was Netflix for horror movies.

Number 5: #readytolove Also apparently a TV show. Certainly not descriptive of Your Not So Humble Correspondent. More like #readytomisanthropize here.

Hoist by Their Own Cyberpetard

Every day, it seems, we glean a little more insight into the wonderful world of Bitcoin. Only a matter of time before we’re cryptocurrency savants. Whether we achieve this knowledge before or after the whole thing completely collapses like the scam it is remains to be seen.

To recap recent events, a few weeks ago, Russian-based cybercriminals hacked into the servers of Colonial Pipeline and locked up their systems, causing chaos up and down the East Coast. The hackers, working with a syndicate known as DarkSide, demanded 75 Bitcoin in ransom to release the company’s computers. Colonial paid the ransom, which was worth somewhere north of $4 million at the time of the payment.

Forward to this week: The FBI announced that they had essentially hacked the hackers. They were able to identify DarkSide’s Bitcoin “wallet” and received permission from a judge to confiscate as much of the ransom as they could. In the event, they were able to claw back about 75% of the money that Colonial had paid.

While I still have no clear idea what Bitcoin actually… is, one thing I did understand was that the whole appeal of the currency—especially to criminals—was its untraceability, it’s imperviousness to such mundane things as confiscation by legal authorities. Only, now it turns out that—go figure!—the same internet that facilitates criminal activity can be used to combat criminals, using many of the same hacking techniques employed by the criminals themselves!

Duffel bags full of cash are looking better by the minute.

Why Can’t We Be Friends

Last week, I got briefly excited when Vice-President Kamala Harris sent me a Facebook friend request.

About damn time! I thought.

Alas, it was not Kamala Harris, but Karen Harris.  Or, more accurately, Harris Karen.  I don't actually know whether this lady's first name is Karen or Harris because, you see, I don't know this lady.  Based on the length of her Friends' list--which at last check stood at zero--I surmise that nobody knows this lady.  It's almost as if . . .  she doesn't actually exist!

Too bad really.  She seems kind of interesting.  She's a Bitcoin miner in Austin, TX.  She might be able to answer some of my burning Bitcoin questions! Also, on the day she sent me her friend request, she also got married!

So, while I didn't accept the friend request, I would like to issue my heartiest congratulations to Harris and her beau.  Given the fact that one of the first things she did on her wedding day was to friend-request a stranger two-thousand miles away, I predict a long and happy marriage.

Basic Economics

A lot of Republican-led states are phasing out extra unemployment benefits that have been offered during the pandemic. They claim that extra benefits dissuade people from rejoining the workforce because why work when the government gives you free money?

There’s a certain logic to that. But since the extra unemployment benefits are around $300 a week, that works out to a little over $7/hr for a 40 hour workweek. Which is to say that, people who are “turning down” work because unemployment pays better must be getting job offers that pay less than $7/hr. So, perhaps the solution would be for employers to pay a living wage?

Of course, increased unemployment benefits are not the only factor keeping people out of the workforce. There are also things like fears of illness and the lack of childcare options, but Republicans don’t want to acknowledge those. Acknowledging those things might necessitate their thinking about actually doing something to help people. And lord knows helping people is not what Republicans got into politics for!

What they did get into politics for remains anyone’s guess.

*****

Amazon update: $5.06. You’re SO close, Bezos!