A Glibertarians Exclusive: Marilee – Part III
Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec – September 1946
Coy woke up screaming.
He sat up in bed, sweat pouring from his face. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Jesus Christ.”
The nightmare was the same one, the same one he had two or three times a week, ever since that day on Okinawa the year before:
The line of Marines pushed up the slope. Coy ran in the middle of the line, up the long, rocky slope, screaming as he went, just like the others. The line broke up to go around some boulders, and that was where the Japs were waiting. Shots rang out all up and down the line; grenades tossed by both sides burst, deafeningly. Coy heard fragments whizz by, and then the crack of a rifle bullet just above his head.
The Japs attacked, screeching like devils. One came right at Coy, his face a mask of hatred. He had a long bayonet on his Arisaka rifle – it looked to Coy like it was ten feet long. Coy watched, frozen for a moment, as the long, long, glittering steel came closer, closer. At the last moment he swung his M1 and deflected the blow but lost the rifle as the bayonet stabbed not into this chest, but into his shoulder. The Jap screamed something incomprehensible, and tried to draw the rifle back, to either shoot or make another stab.
Coy fought back the burning, red-hot pain in his shoulder. The M1 lay a few feet away, but he had another weapon: His .45 in the holster at his hip. He drew the pistol, saw the Jap’s eyes go wide at the realization, at the appearance of the weapon. He tried to pull back, to bring the muzzle of the Arisaka to bear, but Coy pointed the .45 at him and fired and fired and fired, until the slide locked back. The Jap’s bright black eyes went slowly dull as he slid away. Coy went to his knees, then fell forward as the pain consumed him. Somewhere, as from a great distance, he heard the shout: “Corpsman! Corpsman!”
Then nothing.
“Fuck,” Coy muttered.
’32 Ford
He got up, went to the sink, splashed some water on his face. One step to the left took him to the cheap room’s only window, which now looked out on to the first traces of dawn breaking over the little tourist-trap Quebec town of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts. For the last month, Coy had been working as a cook, just downstairs, in a little hotel on the Rue St. Lucie. The hotel catered to summer tourists, and Coy was tired of listening to the guests, especially the Canadians, talking about the war.
“Fucking Canucks,” he muttered for the hundredth time. “Fuckers all fought the Krauts. They got no idea what a real nasty war is like.”
But the tourist season was ending. Coy had been given his walking papers the day before, and told he had three days to clear out of the cheap little room. Fortunately, that was easily done; he owned nothing but a few changes of clothes, his old Marine ruck, a toothbrush with a can of tooth powder, a bar of soap, a threadbare towel, and the Jap bayonet one of his buddies from the 1st Marines had grabbed for him after Coy was taken down off the rocky hill. Despite a year of scrubbing, Coy fancied he could still see stains from his own blood on the blade.
His shoulder ached as he washed up and drank some water, all the breakfast he would have today. The scar was still lurid red, but day by day it faded.
Coy dressed and packed quickly. At least he had one thing going for him; in back of the hotel, he had his truck parked, a clean ‘32 Ford pickup in pretty good shape. He had won the truck in a poker game at Camp Pendleton, just before his discharge. By the time the clock in the cheap room reached seven, Coy was out the door and in the Ford, heading for the States.
As he drove down the highway towards Ottawa, Coy tried to decide what to do next. He had little desire to find out what a northern winter was like, but he could hardly head back to Texas; not with a “Wanted” poster for him likely in every post office in the state. He had experienced a taste of the snow and cold already before his wanderings took him as far as Quebec.
“So south, then,” he muttered to himself.
At least the pickup was running smoothly, the flathead V-8 ticking over without a miss. Coy found he rather enjoyed tinkering with the old beast and had managed to keep it in top form.
“Thanks for betting it all on four nines, Gunnery Sergeant Ames,” Coy muttered. A kings-high straight flush had won the truck and a hundred- and twenty-two-dollar pot, on a late night at the NCO Club at Pendleton, Coy playing one-handed with is wounded arm still in a sling.
“It’s a pretty good truck. At least it’s a nice day for traveling.” Of late Coy had fallen in the habit of talking to himself, probably as most of the time there was no one else to talk to. The sun was well up now, the cab growing warm. Coy cranked down the window to let the cool air in and hummed “Oh! What It Seemed to Be” as he drove.
The first of October found Coy in New Orleans, which was as close to Texas as he cared to go. Down to his last fifty dollars and two packs of smokes, he had found a room in a cheap boarding house, but was kicked out after the third night, when he got drunk and brought a stripper back from a Bourbon Street dive to spend the night with him. The nameless peeler was fun at the time, but as he always did in such instances, Coy’s enjoyment of the woman was tempered by the memory of Marilee. They had only slept together in the back seat of that old Hudson, but somehow that still seemed more real to Coy than any assignation he had managed since.
On the morning after the spitting-mad landlady caught him trying to sneak the stripper out the back door of the boarding house, Coy tossed his ruck in the Ford and headed out to follow up a lead he had picked up in a bar.
“My cousin, he’s looking for a couple of guys to work on his fishing boat,” the anonymous whiskey-drinker had told Coy. “Runs out of Delacroix. Just south of the city. Look for the Main Chance, that’s his boat.”
The road south led through swamps and forests, and as Coy drove the heat and humidity seemed to grow worse by the mile. But at last, he came out into some open country, where a breeze coming in from the southwest made things a little more tolerable. He found the docks just before lunchtime, and a quick walk up and down the waterfront found place he was looking for. The tiny office perched on stilts above a dock with one weather-beaten old fishing boat tied up. A sign on the office door proclaimed the name: MAIN CHANCE FISHERIES.
Coy bounded up the wooden stairs and knocked on the door.
A big, florid man with his left sleeve tied up at the shoulder answered the door. “What you want?” he demanded.
“Heard tell you were looking for help,” Coy said. “Fella named Pete. Didn’t get his last name. Said you were his cousin.”
“Pete Main,” the big man agreed. “I’m George Main.”
“Coy McAlester,” Coy said, and they shook hands.
“You ever fish before, McAlester?”
“Just in rivers and creeks when I was a kid. Bream, catfish.”
“Ever been out on a boat before?”
“Troopships. Bunch of them.”
George Main looked at Coy keenly. “Which theater?”
“Pacific. 1st Marines. Guadalcanal, New Britain, Peleliu, Okinawa.”
Main held up his right arm. Coy saw the anchor and globe tattooed on Main’s right bicep. “6th Marines,” he said. “Lost this arm on Okinawa.”
Coy tapped his shoulder. “I hear you. Took a Jap bayonet through this shoulder. Like to have died from sepsis. Semper fi, brother.”
“Semper fi,” Main said. “Well, I’d like someone who knew more about the trade, but things have been pretty slow since the war ended. Most of the local boys are taking off for N’awlins or up north looking for factory jobs. Reckon if your back and wind is still strong, you can learn the rest. One thing I have to ask, though, hearin’ you talk and all…” He had noted Coy’s East Texas accent. “You got any problem working with nigras? Got two of ‘em on the crew. They’re good fellas, Henry and Joe, and they work hard. Been with me over a year.”
“I got no issues with that. If I ever would’a had any problems with any folks but Japs, war cured me of that. And my back’s fine. Wind, too.”
“Good, then. If you can handle that, I’ll give you a shot. Pay’s six bucks a day, plus three percent of our haul. Food and coffee on the boat while you’re out. Sound good?”
“Sure thing! Place around here I can sleep?”
“Y’all can sleep on the boat, if’n you want. She’s old and ornery but there’s bunks and a head. Galley, too. We’ll stay out couple-three weeks at a time, so we made sure she’s comfortable.”
“Can I leave my truck here in the parking lot while we’re out?”
“Sure. Nobody gonna bother it here. We’ve had thieves come around a time or two, but I sent ‘em off pretty quick.” He pointed to the wall above his desk, where a short-barreled double shotgun hung. “She’s loaded with scrap iron, rock salt and busted glass. Couple boys come around one night, looking to get into my delivery truck. Should’a heard ‘em yelp!”
“I bet,” Coy agreed. “Well, gyrene, you got yourself a fisherman. When do we go out?”
“Monday.” It was Thursday; three days to kill. “You fixed up ‘til then?”
“Sure. Long as I can move into a bunk on the boat today. I can eat until we pull out. Got enough for that.”
“Good enough.” They shook hands again. “Be ready Monday morning, six o’clock sharp. If you drink, don’t do it night before. No booze on the boat, neither, although I’ll stand the crew a few beers when we get back – always do. No smoking, either. She’s got a gas engine, and I don’t want to get blowed up if some fumes get out. Now, as for eatin’ – Helen’s Diner down the street does a pretty good breakfast and dinner, and they won’t take too big a chunk out of your wallet.”
“I’ll be more than ready. OK if I toss my ruck in a bunk and go find that diner?”
“Sure. Bunks on the starboard side – that’s the right side – those are Henry and Joe’s. Bottom bunk to port is Micky’s, he’s an Irishman, wandered in here month before the war started, been with me ever since. Ran the boat while I was gone. He’s second in charge now. So, you get top bunk to port. Little cabin at the front is mine. OK?”
“OK, Boss,” Coy said.
“Good.” Main looked thoughtful for a moment. “You any good with mechanical stuff?”
“Keeping my own truck running,” Coy replied. “I’ve worked on cars, mostly my own, but some helpin’ other folks.”
“If you’re a decent hand with a wrench, you can spend tomorrow helping me get the boat in order. Some damn thing or another always needs fixed after a trip, and the last one was a bitch. Do that, I’ll pay you for tomorrow, then you get a weekend off to do whatever. Monday, we head out.”
“Obliged. I can always do with an honest day’s work.”
“I think we’ll get along, then. Anyway, I got paperwork. Go ahead and toss your stuff in the bunk, go get something to eat, whatever. Be on the boat and ready to work at eight tomorrow – we ain’t taking the boat out until Monday and I don’t mind sleeping another hour or two.”
“I’ll be there.”
Come Monday, Coy stood on at the port rail of the Main Chance as the fishing chugged down towards the Gulf. He watched the sun rising over the bayous as the boat moved down the channel. George Main handled the boat deftly. The Irishman Micky Foley bustled around the boat, doing this and that. Henry and Joe turned out to be brothers, Henry and Joe Hopper, and they were now standing up near the bow, watching for junk in the water. Now and then, one of them would call out, and Main would steer the Main Chance around a piece of floating driftwood or some other flotsam.
This ought to suit right well for a while, Coy told himself. Good honest work. Low profile. Probably end up smelling like fish when I get back, but what the hell. Money’s OK. Wonder if there are any unattached gals in Delacroix? Small town, likely to be someone. Coy had found, in his wanderings, that there usually was someone.
But it wasn’t the same.
Even now, with the war better than a year over, there were plenty of women who would happily bed down with a returned veteran. But it wasn’t the same, and on some level Coy knew it would never be the same. With every girl, with every laugh, every smile, he was haunted by the image of red hair and flashing green eyes.
Wonder if I ever will get over her. Probably not.
The spell was broken by a shout from Micky Foley. “Ey, laddie! New fella! Don’ ye be jes’ standing aroond! Come on an’ help me get these nets roolled oat!”
Time to go to work. There were first impressions to make, and Coy wanted them to be good ones.
I had a job in the great north woods,
Working as a cook for a spell.
But I never did like it all that much,
And one day the ax just fell.
So I drifted down to New Orleans,
Where I lucky was to be employed,
Working for a while on a fishing boat,
Right outside of Delacroix.
But all the while I was alone,
The past was close behind,
I seen a lot of women,
But she never escaped my mind.
And I just grew,
Tangled up in blue.
Coy gets around eh?
Great stuff Animal,
Until I met my wife I had what Coy has at one point. That unshakable image of someone that just sparks every neuron in your brain. I was trying to explain that to my kids. You will meet people in this world where there is a no explanation to the attraction, it is just beyond.
They asked how can you say that with mom sitting right there and she joined in “because it happens to everyone. There are 7 billion people on this planet”. Difference is you don’t go running and acting on it if you are with someone that you love and made a commitment.
True dat!
Even after they are gone, the Flashs of memory stick with you, forever
It helps things move along smoother if she has the same reaction. Otherwise you go from being ‘Romantic’ to being a ‘Stalker’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOMeBoHASX8
Yep…
Well, that was cool! Now to jump in the wayback for parts I and II. I like reading backwards.
This is fine.
Here is a more complete list of US-supplied and left behind equipment list now controlled by Taliban:
-2,000 Armored Vehicles Including Humvees and MRAP’s
-75,989 Total Vehicles: FMTV, M35, Ford Rangers, Ford F350, Ford Vans, Toyota Pickups, Armored Security Vehicles etc
-45 UH-60 Blachhawk Helicopters
-50 MD530G Scout Attack Choppers
-ScanEagle Military Drones
-30 Military Version Cessnas
-4 C-130’s
-29 Brazilian made A-29 Super Tocano Ground Attack Aircraft
208+ Aircraft Total
-At least 600,000+ Small arms M16, M249 SAWs, M24 Sniper Systems, 50 Calibers, 1,394 M203 Grenade Launchers, M134 Mini Gun, 20mm Gatling Guns and Ammunition
-61,000 M203 Rounds
-20,040 Grenades
-Howitzers
-Mortars +1,000’s of Rounds
-162,000 pieces of Encrypted Military Comunications Gear
-16,000+ Night Vision Goggles
-Newest Technology Night Vision Scopes
-Thermal Scopes and Thermal Mono Googles
-10,000 2.75 inch Air to Ground Rockets
-Recconaissance Equipment (ISR)
-Laser Aiming Units
-Explosives Ordnance C-4, Semtex, Detonators, Shaped Charges, Thermite, Incendiaries, AP/API/APIT
-2,520 Bombs
-Administration Encrypted Cell Phones and Laptops all operational
-Pallets with Millions of Dollars in US Currency
-Millions of Rounds of Ammunition including but not limited to 20,150,600 rounds of 7.62mm, 9,000,000 rounds of 50.caliber
-Large Stockpile of Plate Carriers and Body Armor
-US Military HIIDE, for Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment Biometrics
-Lots of Heavy Equipment Including Bull Dozers, Backhoes, Dump Trucks, Excavators
I’m so glad the adults are in charge now.
And theyre breaking my balls for the 6k they say i underpaid last year. Or that they understole from me.
Of all the things that are hard to believe, most of all is believing that leaving behind all this gear wasn’t at least in part wholly intentional. This list is at the very least a good reminder that every gun law is an infringement.
Well it was intentional to a point. It was intended for the Afghan army if I am not mistaken.
My mind keeps treating the desertion of the Afghan army as a given and not something wholly unexpected.
Foreseeable consequences are not unintended?
They moved into first place as the best equipped army on earth. Pallets of cash, count out 6 K for my buddy, Jerms, I’ll make sure he gets it.
“-75,989 Total Vehicles: FMTV, M35, Ford Rangers, Ford F350, Ford Vans, Toyota Pickups”
Cash for Clunkers
Great stuff again. Thanks man.
Makes for mid morning lull at work bearable. Pun intended.
Damn, Animal, you missed on the hair and eye color, time frame, but I’d almost believe someone has been reading my memory. Great story or autobiography, with the names changed to protect the guilty, I dunno. Now I have to wait another week I’ll be right here…
My memories as well, except he got the Hair and eyes just right,
https://trendingpolitics.com/more-than-75-doctors-walk-out-of-south-florida-hospital-rather-than-treat-the-unvaccinated-knab/
Pure propaganda. *barf*
What a nonsensical response.
Either A: The vaccine works and the doctors don’t have anything to worry about.
Or B: the vaccine doesn’t work and there’s no point in making the patients take it.
Either way, there’s no reason to abandon their jobs.
It isn’t that they are afraid of treating un-vaccinated. They are trying to make a point that because people aren’t getting vaccinated they have to work doubly hard and those nasty dirty humans are taking up precious hospital beds that only the clean vaccinated persons…oh wait…
List the names so that way if I am ever in Florida, I know what doctors to avoid in trusting them with their medical knowledge and advice.
Perhaps if the incompetent assholes were giving therapeutic treatment for COVID early in the cycle they wouldn’t have this problem.
As it stands, their refusal to prescribe any treatment until COVID becomes unmanageable is unethical at best.
And when the vaccines completely fail, which it looks like will happen now, what are these asshats going to do then?
85% of the ICU beds in Florida are full,” Sanders claimed.
Isn’t that normal?
Because we know vaccines are safe and effective.
Actually we don’t know that at all. But they appear to be ineffective.
And it’s people who go out and talk against them that really go against physicians and medicine and science.
I AM THE
LAWSCIENCE!Vaccines are safe and we need to get our communities vaccinated.
I don’t understand this insane drive to try to vax everyone for a coronavirus (which is something that you can’t actually do…).
85% of the ICU beds in Florida are full,” Sanders claimed.
Isn’t that normal?
Yup.
There’s probably hospitals that have their ICUs full. You can only use an ICU room for an ICU patient, not any other room and certainly not a cafeteria, etc. ICU rooms need medical gasses and negative pressure. I would be really curious to know what these other hospitals are, and what they are actually using cafeterias, etc. for. This stinks of urban legend to me.
If those docs are employed by the hospital, I have no doubt they can be fired for cause. Depending on whether they actually arranged for coverage of their patients if they walked out on while still on shift, they can be kicked off the medical staff and have the Board of Medicine take a hard look at their licenses. But this is a “good” protest, so I predict Nothing Else Will Happen.
Will they stop treating fatties who refuse to lose weight too?
Now do HIV status.
People forget that at one time there really was an AIDS crisis and hospitals in certain areas, such as NY, were overloaded at times. Never did was there, apart from some whack job fringe types, was there a suggestion that doctors wouldn’t treat gays or junkies, even when they sometimes had inadequate PPE. They did their fucking jobs to the best of their ability in accordance with their oaths.
And it was Fauci who spurred on a lot of that panic.
Time is a flat circle.
And Neil Ferguson.
Well, so much for the Hippocratic Oath.
First, do no
I have come across a couple of versions of this, last time it was nurses, but in any case, it boils down to BS. A quick check of the Johns Hopkins covid tracker shows what the levels in a state are for ICU and regular beds, most of which seemed to have climbed 1-3%. So it 75 doctors or whatever number of nurses has left/quit/found work elsewhere/whatever it comes down to a staffing issue and not a covid issue.
At best it is crappy reporting, worst downright propaganda. In no case is it Covid.
You’re fucking fired!
Sincerely, Management
(if only)
You’re fuckin’ fired!
I was expecting this NSFW language
Apparently that’s where my song quote comes from but I didn’t know that before.
Anthony Cumia might be the only one who can make me laugh at what’s happening in Australia.
https://youtu.be/5Nh1wOBqurI
Cumia’s underrated, probably the funniest not actually a comedian around.
I quit XM over his firing, even though I find some of his views extreme.
He was fired for doing what he was hired to do.
I’ve listened a couple of times to Sam& Jim, when Sirius was free, and Ant was on once.
The show as 10 times better than when he wasn’t there.
I don’t agree with him on a bunch of things either but I do enjoy his exasperated bitterness.
Oh sorry Animal but this is too good to not just post
https://redstate.com/kiradavis/2021/08/23/uk-police-turn-into-literal-clown-show-as-they-unveil-new-rainbow-themed-hate-crime-cars-n431435
HAHAHAHAHA! Respect my authoritah!
I’d prefer those to the black doomcruisers they are currently driving.
That paint scheme is certainly unfortunate, but I don’t think I would call it a hate crime.
What the thought police inside do is.
The Telegraph claimed in their post that people will be encouraged to report “incidents such as social media comments.”
A rainbow encourages people to report on their neighbor’s wrong-speech?
Deputy Chief Constable Julie Cooke said in an Instagram post that the cars were meant to give “confidence to underrepresented groups.”
You can be confident that officer friendly will give you a gay ole time.
“Underrepresented” in what?
Oh, right, I forgot. That is another word that doesn’t mean what it used to any more.
Underrepresented in fabulousness.
Godspeed Ozy…godspeed.
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/pfizer-vaccine-receives-full-approval-fda
I see reboot potential.
While the same administration has released Taliban operatives who are now in Afghanistan directing the assault.
The A-V Team?
You know they rubber-stamped the full approval in order to facilitate mandates. The sad thing is the people allowed this to happen. As someone else pointed out it could have been stopped with immediate massive disobedience.
Of course they did. Unfortunately for them, the vaccine effectivity is declining rapidly (see Israel). By winter, there’s going to be a massive wakeup call.
By winter, there’s going to be a massive
wakeup callpush for a booster shot mandate.I was telling Mrs. Dean just yesterday that I took the vax because I am being paid very well to do so, but I don’t know if they are paying me enough to take a booster.
Israel’s already calling for and implementing it. Should be interesting to see if it works.
I said last year that it would be a part of the flu shot by this fall. I was probably a year off, but I figure the booster will be part of the mix by next year, unless there is a reason it can’t be given together with the other.
But mandating the booster is stupid beyond words.
Now is the time, it’s not too late in most areas.
Now that they have their fake authorization, I expect my work to double down and threaten to fire me. I gotta make an appointment and see my doc so i can beg for an exemption as my last resort. I don’t need a vax and all of the possible side effects are possible for no good fucking reason. I’d rather, I guess, scam my way out of getting it, than get it just to shut these people up. I guess.
What kind of requirements are there for the unclean? We’re requiring them to get tested twice a week (pro: we’re paying for it, con: its the nasal swab). HR keeps saying “we’re not being punitive”, but they’re being punitive.
If its not punitive then why not test people who got the shot? They can obviously get/spread this thing.
Hush, you.
Could this come to resemble medical cannabis “reasons”?
Depends on the employer. We have a list clinical conditions we will accept for a medical exemption.
The city council voted for no options. Shots, exemption or be fired. If I was only getting punished by having to tested, I would be fine with that.
Jeez. Sorry.
That’s our position, too. The testing is for people who get an exemption.
The 13th Warrior has been one of my favorite movies for over twenty years, but it wasn’t until I watched The Critical Drinker’s retrospective/review that I realized it was an adaptation of Beowulf. Just never crossed my mind. The warrior king is named Buliwyf, but it’s pronounced ‘Bulvie’, I’d never paid attention to the credits to see spelling. And the enemy is called the Vendal, never struck me as Grendel. But damned looking at it now it hits all the story beats of Beowulf and seems fucking obvious. The sad thing is other you lot here, I don’t know anyone in day to day life literate enough to what the fuck I’m talking about to even discuss this revelation.
Huh…
Never considered that angle at all, seems obvious now.
And I do like that movie.
I don’t know what to say because I read “Eaters of the Dead” first, and the material around the book mentions the Beowulf connection.
I don’t know if I’d have noticed just watching the movie in isolation.
“I’m not so good at the readin”
It’s a Crichton book based on the story of the Arab who traveled North,much research was done, good read.
Yep, I liked the book better than the movie.
Michael Crichton has a sad
Turning over in his grave, as it were.
I think I must have heard of it as a Beowulf adaptation, because I recall watching it with that in mind.
While I don’t regularly do windows, part of my job requires administering the membership of certain active directory groups that intersect with my domain.
Now for these types of admin tasks and for logging into servers, we have a separate admin account that isn’t for logging into our desktop or everyday tasks. So things like our email and O365 licenses are tied to our regular accounts.
So far so normal.
Recently, the power that be in their infinite wisdom decided to roll out a ‘security’ product that randomizes the passwords on admin accounts every so many hours. You’d get your password by logging in to the web portal with your regular account and an MFA token. Annoying, but I can still log into the servers and do my work.
Then they allowed all users to update their non-security related user profiles on the web interface used by non-domain admins for managing AD group memberships, and turned on Single Sign-on for that site. There is no ‘change user’ option on the page, so unless I log into the desktop as my admin account, I can’t manage these group memberships, even though I could do it that way before. And with the way the admin passwords are now handled, I have to either have two computers to dance between, or I have to log in as me, write down the admin password, then switch users to the admin account.
You dumb bastards.
WTF? Security = make it impossible for sysadmins to do their jobs? Is this what they are teaching in management courses these days?
I’m thinking a salesman for the ‘security’ product bamboozled the upper management. Since the upper management doesn’t use the product to do their jobs, they don’t see the problems it creates.
“Bamboozled”. There is a reason that the sales reps for these products tend to be on the hot end of the spectrum.
It can’t be racist if Spike Lee makes it.
It can, on the other hand, be a steaming pile.
I remember when AT&T consultants got a contract with Best Buy that my company badly wanted and was already working on something very similar for BBY.
Lots of WTF? going on until the AT&T “consulting team” showed up. Six gals that could be models and 2 nerdy guys. The six gals spent months interviewing business stake holders while the two guys programmed a crap POC.
After about a year, AT&T got bounced, but no one was upset by the money that was wasted on the endeavor. Even the guys from my company that were working onsite weren’t mad because we got to use our Male Gaze on them for a long time.
p.s. My company at the time was Andersen Consulting who was also notorious for turning eye candy into consultants who were only there for pitches.
You worked for Andersen Consulting? Hoo boy, I had some fun with them in ’89 (may have still been part of Arthur Andersen at that time) when I was part of a team called in to clean up an ungodly mess they created at Seagrams. IIRC a multi-million dollar lawsuit followed. Fun times.
Yup, I was there from ’95 to ’00. Good times.
The Minneapolis office was different from most AC outfits. Instead of sending out a bunch of fresh out of college kids, they created a solution center where work came to us. They also concentrated more on developing deep technical skills and sold them to other AC partners that needed smarts.
Seriously, I wish that would have been my second or third job so I really got to appreciate all the smart ambitious people I was working with. I thought that would be how all companies were.
Then I left and started consulting and realized what a unique environment that was.
But I also know what you are talking about with other AC projects. Saw a lot of crap like that too. The good thing about AC is that I’m sure they ended up settling those lawsuits with something along the lines of “How about you pay for the work we already did and then we will do another year’s work at super reduced rates?” The reduced rate would be $75 instead of $175/hr. (They paid shit wages so that even managers were only making $40/hr).
Yeah, that Minneapolis office sounds like a good place. Definitely not what we were dealing with. After a two-year implementation, the EVP who sponsored the project declared it to be complete, put it in production, collected his bonus, and left to pursue his next disaster. He was not around to answer the tough questions like “why can’t we bill our customers?” Took months to get something resembling an actual functioning application. We did get a few dinners at this joint on their dime, so not a total loss.
Yep. A buddy of mine is a sales manager for a pharmaceutical company. He mainly hired former models (male and female).
It just works.
The two guys programmed a crap Person of Color?
How racist.
That’s funny. Bamb00zled! is my password.
11 characters, too short for password policy. Choose a new password.
(Oh, and I’m serious, our password policy is a Minimum of fourteen characters)
I love bank sites that have some piss poor restrictions on password policy…like only 8 characters and you cant have a symbol…so make it as easy as possible for people to log into your bank account.
Fourteen characters, sixteen of which must be non-printable.
Worse, I’ve noticed that people tend to keep the randomized admin password in an open notepad document rather than simply having it memorized as with the old system.
It’s one step removed from a post-it on the monitor.
^^^ This is why 90-day password expiration is a bad idea (I do NOT care what the “experts” think about this). Of course the solution to the issue of people forgetting passwords is to buy and implement very expensive password management tools, so maybe password expiration is a good idea for the
griftersecurity community. My outfit is only using two such tools. So far.Our mandatory password changes have to be handled just so, because the security on our company phones and devices will hammer the network with your old password and get you locked out. Every 90 days, like clockwork, some poor IT soldado is parked in the CEO’s office, trying to unscrew her computer, phone, and tablet.
LOL. Our infrastructure team has actually done a pretty good job managing this horseshit. After the 90-day password change, everything gets synched except for gitlab – I have to manually update that in Windows Credentials. As far as remembering the password, I just update my RDP script with the new password and I’m done (this is basically not much different from writing it in a notepad document, except it sounds so much cooler).
They don’t just take a picture of it with their smartphone?
That’s more work. From notepad, they can just copy-paste it into the login prompts when they pop up. A photograph would require typing in these godawful long random strings by hand.
This.
Here in my federal job, we have ‘single sign on’ through our CAC enabled network, but then we have multiple systems and DBs that they can’t get the that to work, so I have a word document with a page-and-a-half of logins and passwords.
Yep. Single point logins are here! Oh, but you need all these other passwords, with varying requirements for everything else.
Ah, i thought they had to logout and log back in also to use that limited time password.
We work with a system only people in our department, which can only be accessed with a key card can enter, the ever changing passwords is a ridiculous step in that environment. But still we have it. Because people are stupid.
I have two virtual post-it notes on my “desktop” for a couple admin passwords I recently created.
Either I don’t have access to create passwords on our secure password site – access I requested months ago – or maybe I didn’t figure it out yet. The website is extremely poorly designed.
So they’re not going anywhere for now because I need them every day and they are not memorizable.
Passwords are the debil.
Interesting podcast episode on why passwords are problematic.
I just apply an ‘algorithm’ for mine. xX!xx##somerandomwordorphrase(minimum 8 characters)##Xx
Really only have to remember the random word or phrase
I do too, based on the algorithm of the first password I was assigned last year when I was hired. I figure if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.
I used to use keyboard patterns but they’ve figured that trick out.
Meh. I have a large KeePass file full of passwords. There is no way I’m going to try to memorize any passwords anymore, except the one I need to get into my password file.
I prefer to memorize mine. If possible.
Mine are random gibberish created by a random password generator. It’s mostly muscle memory for typing them.
Mine are oddball words in different languages with a number, upper case letter, and a special character. The longer ones just get too confusing and while I can remember the password itself, I can’t remember which one I used for which site.
Mine are oddball words in different languages with a number, upper case letter, and a special character
Same here. I generally go for obscure weapon names.
The Rotoflugenmeiser?
Nice try, Fed.
Why do people insist on complex passwords?
You want plausible deniability with everything.
Most of my passwords are “password”.
y can go fuck himself.
https://humanrights.ca/story/a-cauldron-of-hell-the-story-of-canadas-hong-kong-veterans
And so can the lie that the Pacific was a Marine Corps only war.
*Coy
I can see a gyrene not knowing about Canadians in Hong Kong.
I’ve never heard the one about the Pacific being a Marine Corps only war, which would be exceptionally stupid given that the commanding officer was MacArthur, an Army general, and there were more Army grunts than gyrenes in theater.
I have a vague memory of the Marine Corps refusing to listen to the army’s warnings about amphibious assaults against japanese fortifications learned the hard way earlier in the war because the Marines were convinced they had nothing to learn from the army about amphibious assaults.
Just watched a documentary about Tarawa, the first big amphibious landing.
What. An. Utter. Shitshow. The landing boats couldn’t make it past the coral reefs, and the Marines had to wade hundreds of yards to shore. Something like 5,000 killed, both sides, on an island roughly the size of Central Park.
Why did the Japanese have so many on that particular island? I don’t recall its specific significance.
It was part of a japanese plan to cut off australia from american naval resupply.
You have to remember, the imperial japanese didnt plan for war well. They were horribly short on supply ships. So when a something maru cargo ship dropped off troops and supplies, they might not see another cargo ships for months. The japanese tended forward deploy more troops than needed for this reason. Which is why cutting off jap troops on tiny islands was effective. The japanese couldnt resupply the troops and there were more than than the tin6 island could feed. Starvation.
The Pacific theater was split into two areas of command between the Army and Navy, MacArthur was commander in the SW Pacific Theater, the Navy (Nimitz) was commander in the Central Pacific theater.
Not quite true. While the commanders of each of those were separate services, both services were in each. Several Army divisions were assigned to the Solomons campaign which was partially under the Pacific Operations Area Command.
And of course Vinegar Joe and his boys under the British led SE Asia command.
Relax. This isn’t a historical examination of WW2 in the Pacific. These are the thoughts of a Marine, probably a lance corporal or a corporal. The was has only been over a few months and he’s bitter and angry about what he went through, and is pretty parochial about his views.
The Pacific theater Marine only?? Who claims that? That would be a lie of Democratic proportions.
Heh stealing that
It certainly is in popular imagination. How many soldiers were featured in The Pacific? Iwo Jima, Guadacanal, etc etc..
Outstanding!
I’m really enjoying the time jumps.
Thanks, Animal!
Great writing, Animal, can’t wait for the next installment.
Thanks!
This is the kind of shit that used to end with mobs, pitchforks, and guillotines at the Bastille:
JIM TREACHER: The Elites Dance and Feast While You Close Up Shop.
Yeah but then you end up with Napoleon.
I’d be content to see a Neo-Napoleon trek across the Canadian waste giving chase to Castro Jr right about now.
The same was true at Obama’s big party.
Masks are just another class signifier now.
Too true.
The grocery store chain where I shop now requires staff to wear face diapers. Customers are “expected” to wear masks if they aren’t vaccinated or the store is in a county the CDC has high rates of Lil Rona.
Weirdly, in the wild, the highest percentage of the compliant around here by far is middle-class and up white people.
Oops.
Mostly.
Mostly hoovered up by the Chinese and Nigerian fraudsters?
Something something barn door something horse.
Infuriating. We have our telecomm services through L4-Harris and of course, we also have to work with local telco companies if they are in line. One of our sites is at Grand Canyon and is a 4-hour drive for us to provide support/access. Scheduled that all up last week, got a technician cleared to go and know what? Those bastards didn’t show up because apparently they rescheduled or wrote down the wrong time or something. WTF….
Sorry OBE. It’s no different on the other side. Have it all set up and Harris or FAA yanks the maintenance release at the last minute. Recycle and do it all over again.
The Show-me/Make-me state has deteriorated into the “gimme that mask” state fast. People are seriously spooked. It’s the only reason I can think of for 95% masking where none is mandated or even suggested. No signs on Michael’s, Office Depot, or Walmart. WM was packed, and masks as far as the eye can see. The only people (3) I saw who were unmasked were elderly. GenX on down, all masked.
WTF.
Sheesh, even around here it’s majority unmasked. And Albany is crock full of fools who follow propaganda directives.
We’re a hotspot because over half of MO won’t get vaxxed.
I dunno. Maybe the masks are in lieu of it. Maybe it’s a marker of “I’m not vaxxed.” I don’t know.
I personally know a man my age died of COVID (he went down fast, though, from symptom onset to coffin), and my friend is still on the vent, although she’s out of isolation. I’m just not afraid of it. I can understand that other people may be spooked, but at the same time, that many?
*shrug*
I don’t know what’s going on in people’s heads.
Glad to hear your friend is on the mend. But still on a ventilator? That is horrible; long time ago I was on a ventilator for a couple of hours after Thoracic surgery and would not wish that on my worst enemy.
She’s sedated, but yeah. She’s going on a week ? now.
Drugs probably help. I couldn’t have them because I had to cough out the crap from my lungs before they could remove the ventilator. After that, two days of Demerol in the ICU.
Sedation is SOP for vented COVID patients.
Oh. I should have kept reading the comments before replying.
The pandemic has created a new category of living will restriction. It used to be just DNR – Do Not Resuscitate. Now we’re seeing DNI – Do Not Intubate.
I’ve never been intubated, but I’ve seen it done, including in the ER on somebody who was jacked on who knows what to the point they could barely breathe but could still fight the nurses. I wass watching from the hall (doing late night rounds), and I swear you could feel the floor vibrate as one of the largest people I have ever seen in person walks past in scrubs to hold down the patient. Graveyard shift in the ER is . . . interesting, and we’re not even a trauma center.
So, yeah, no thanks.
I’ve been seeing DNR/DNI on med reports for the past 2 years, IF I see it at all. Amazing how many 90yos are full code.
I too have heard it’s really unpleasant.
I was vented for 2 or 3 days. Heavily sedated so I don’t remember much but they eased off the sleep juice towards the end. I wanted to communicate so my wife gave me a pad and I wrote messages to her and the nurse which got prompt replies. Found out later that I had just been doing unintelligible scribbles that they made up responses to.
I don’t remember having the vent pulled back out, but apparently it’s so unpleasant they made my wife leave the room for it. The sedation caused vivid hallucinations for days following the vent removal. I thought my room was in Caesar’s Palace casino for a while.
If that’s anything like a nose-to-stomach tube I’m gonna have to agree. Two days of that was by far my worst experience during a hospital stay last year.
From the comments, it sounds way worse.
Yeah, drug me the hell up for that.
Sorry about your friend that died. I thought the friend in the hospital was off the ventilator?
No, she’s still vented, but out of isolation. It’s been 2.5 weeks since I took her to the hospital.
The friend who died is male, quick progression from symptom onset to death.
Most of those I see young are on either end of the age spectrum, over 70 or under 30. I’m thankful that I haven’t seen a mask on a runner, jogger, or cyclist for the past couple of weeks.
This matches what I am seeing.
But in this part of Oregon, it really comes down to political affiliation.
No change here all summer. Breathing free is still uncommon, but it is also completely unremarked upon in those places where it has not been banned yet.
Nobody looked twice at me.
I honestly expected different but my NYC is not the realm of busy-body Karens – it’s the realm of mind your own business. (Another reason I don’t live in Manhattan.)
About 25% at local Trader Joe’s.
Have you before?
I’ve only visited (too long ago) but I miss it once in a while.
Yeah, I lived in Manhattan for two years. Convenient as all hell but I couldn’t afford a third year, anyway.
Where, if you don’t mind my asking?
(Told you I miss it. Had a local tour guide who dragged me to The Greatest Bar on Earth.)
W. 16th St. and 6th Ave.
Heh. Might have passed you on the street.
Did either of you guys go to Jimmys Neutral Corner? It’s a small dive bar in that area. I had to do some work stuff in Manhattan in the late nineties and hung out there a little bit.
I don’t wear one unless forced to do so (work) but inside of a store is probably the best use case where you wear one long enough to shop for 15 minutes and then get back outside.
Not that that’s saying much.
Depends on the store perhaps. For a grocery store (or Walmart or Costco) with large open space and adequate air flow, there’s no reason for masks. Both exposure amount and exposure duration are low in that setting.
99% of Masks peo0le wear dont work and even say not for medical use, so using masks in any business is for show only.
It’s getting worse. Since last week, church went from 15% masked to 35% masked, and this wasn’t exactly a liberal church. We just got back from a mall that was probably 70% masked, including a mask nazi at the disney store that stopped my 4 year old and asked her to put on a mask. Wife responded with a disdainful chuckle and redirected kiddo elsewhere. Sorry disney, no business for you.
How many masked at the food court?
Food court tables are protected with a bubble that repels COVID this is known. Also, its because those tables are so disgusting that even COVID backs down.
depressingly many with masks under their chins while shoveling food down their gullets
Our new church in Fort Collins is 0% masked, as far as I can tell.
I haven’t seen a mask yet.
Wow.
I’m seeing face diapers slowly come back here in southern NH, but the majority of people are face diaper free.
It is a person’s blanky from when they were children. The news could instantly flip-flop and suddenly give credence to the studies that show that cloth and now the blue disposable masks are not amounting to what they were sold as and it wouldn’t change for sometime.
People are still wearing plastic shields as face covering.
I think people do that so they don’t have to mask. At least that’s my impression.
Definitely. But hasn’t allowed as a face mask alternative since the new diktat if not earlier. Momentum and habit are powerful forces.
As a collector of fine firearms, I’d love to get my hands on some M249s, M240s, M134s. Well, I’d trade the M249s for Negev LMGs, but I’d keep the rest.
As a pilot, the A-29 Super Tucano would be a hell of a fun airplane for weekend jaunts.
Those bastards left Vulcans behind. I want my old SHORAD gun back! 5000 rounds per minute of High Explosive Incendiary Tracer (HEIT) in 20mm; perfect for home defense or plinking at small game.
The best Adam Carolla rant ever beginning at 40 min:
https://youtu.be/CyFStdSyah0
Antiauthoritarian, antiAntifa, antimasking, antiCovid hysteria, and anticomplying with bullshit. It’s a good one…
Lol and immediately into a better help ad.
Boo.
Local media rag puts up an article saying Andy granted ten people clemency, but doesn’t say who these people are or what their crimes were. (Clemency is not a pardon, just a reduction of sentence, so they’re still convicted)
While wandering the site, I discovered that New Palz wants a housing shortage.
I caught the tail end of Cuomo’s autobenediction on the radio. He mentioned how things were in good hands with Kathy Hochul being governor of NY and Eric Adams being the Mayor of NYC.
NYC mayor imposes no-option Covid vaccine mandate on all public school teachers & staff
No option.
NJ is so much better. Here you can be unvaxxed as long as you have “at least” two negative tests per week. Of course, given the frequency of false positives you will eventually be screwed anyhow.
Can’t wait to see how the Feds implement it for us. That was what they were going to go with, the two-test a week or whatever but we can be called in to fix equipment so…not really sure how that works. My guess now that it is blessed, they drop that and make it a condition of employment.
A lot of techs out in the field are not on that page…
Make them also wear an identifier in public if they are not vaxed: Signs on homes for quarantined.
“No content found”
Hm…maybe Odysee’s “copy video address” does not work?
Try this.
That’s fantastic! I noted before, they are just imposing a kinder (well…not always) version of the Chinese bolt-your-house-door-shut tactic.
Much better. Or worse, that is depressing. Star of David was a nice touch, though.
That was quick, whatever it was.
Linky no work.
W00t – air conditioner-in-a-box has arrived. Two days late and not a moment too soon judging by the forecast.
⛄️ ?
Heh, my central unit crapped out about a month ago and when the window unit I ordered arrived I danced a little jig. It’s hard to beat being comfortable.
Drain the condenser properly!
I drained the last one properly. There wasn’t any water left in it and it still tapped out. It was about 10 years old so I wasn’t too surprised.
Nice!
Cool!
“My cousin, he’s looking for a couple of guys to work on his fishing boat,” the anonymous whiskey-drinker had told Coy. “Runs out of Delacroix. Just south of the city. Look for the Main Chance, that’s his boat.”
🙂
https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1429457790553231367
Election fraud is a right-wing myth!
Cool link, bro!
Crap, sorry.
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1428382828794978311
Maybe we should set up a Glibertarians-wide game of Tank Turns Tactics?
https://www.oann.com/u-s-surgeon-general-expects-businesses-universities-to-impose-vaccine-mandates-as-fda-approves-pfizer/
That dude can go eat a bag of dicks.
IOW, impose mandates or we’ll make life difficult for you.
Well it looks like I picked a good time to leave the workforce. No vaxx mandates to worry about… well until they make it necessary to enter stores, restaurants, etc (provided the latter enforce turning away customers).
Michigan – surprise, surprise – has a “wear a mask if not vaxxed” via CDC “rule” that most people ignore. The stores I’ve gone to are maybe 20% masked? The estate sales I went to last week were pretty much mask free.
I went to get a haircut today and they had a similar “if unvaxxed, please mask” sign. I ignored it. Nobody asked for my status and that was that.
Great story, Animal! Keep up the good work.
This is such a great series. Knowing the song, but not by heart, it’s fun to pick out the references I know, and then read the lyrics at the ends to pick out the ones I missed. And 4 more verses to go!
You are a very talented writer, Animal. Thank you for sharing with us.