That night, I went to a bar to celebrate. I had only one pint of beer, which is not something that happens often when I go to a bar. At the time, I was trying to turn over a new leaf. When I went to my car and its lights flashed when I unlocked it, the lights on a cop car parked nearby flashed. I approached the cop car and when I did, the cop inside got out and walked away without saying a word or even looking in my direction. It was very strange behavior. The cop car had markings for the county marshal. I did not know the county had a marshal or why a car from that organization would be in that parking lot.
But the strangest thing that happened that night was when I was crossing the street, the walk sign counted down from 72 instead of 8. That’s a very odd glitch. Another time, I saw something similar. I was in a restaurant, and I could see a walk sign out of the window. I watched it count down from 8 to 1, then from 72 to 65, and it switched back and forth between the two for about 10 minutes. That did not appear to be the kind of glitch that would happen normally, and I suspected someone was manipulating it from afar.
About the same time, in mid-August, I applied to be an NSA code breaker and was invited to take an online test. I’ve never taken a test quite like it. The first section was about pattern recognition and reminded me of Raven’s Progressive Matrices. The next section was about completing series of numbers by identifying the rule. The last was about spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I never got any feedback on how I did, but as of January 2022, my application was in the ‘interview/testing’ phase. I didn’t think I was smart enough to be a code breaker and I saw it as a great honor to even be considered.
I wrote an epic cover letter as part of my NSA application. It says:
My life has been a long, strange journey and I have struggled to find my place in the world. I can say with confidence I am the only man in history who’s been in the Peace Corps, the Army, the NSA, and an insane asylum.
Also I’m a failed stand-up comedian and one time I dug up a dinosaur bone in Wyoming.
Other fun facts about me: I got a perfect score on the ASVAB and I lost 50 pounds to join the Army.
I had fun working for the only part of the government that actually listens. I want to work for the NSA again because mission was the reason I got out of bed. I look forward to solving hard problems and contributing to national defense.
Also in August, I came on base to rent a pistol. It was the first time I had gone shooting in years. I saw it as a sign of trust. They wouldn’t let me on base to rent a gun if they thought I was a dangerous lunatic. I thought I saw my tormentor there. He drove up, walked in the clubhouse, then immediately left. He seemed annoyed to be there and he did not return my greeting. I have trouble recognizing people out of uniform, yet I’m pretty sure it was him. My guess is he was sent to gauge my reaction. On the other, about the same time, my clearance went into loss of jurisdiction status and that killed my chances at getting the civilian linguist jobs I had applied for.
There were times when it seemed they were sending me hints. I kept seeing ads about liver disease, and so one day in Notepad I wrote that they should go ahead and bombard me with sick liver ads as that was the push I needed. I had barely finished typing when all dozen or so ads on the page instantly changed to be warnings about liver disease. So although they were spying on me, it was nice to know they also did not want me to drink myself to death.
During this time, I applied to some other NSA jobs, but was quickly rejected from them. When I had not yet been rejected, I opened up Notepad and started typing in my mental sandbox, hoping that perhaps someone at NSA would see it. I displayed a Facebook screenshot where my Chicago nemesis confessed to his groping spree. I thought it would impress my mysterious monitors by showing that I knew how to track down bad guys electronically. Not long after I displayed it, my laptop displayed an error message about being critically low on memory and crashed. I suspect it was a sign from my monitors that they were displeased with what I had showed them. I’ve been using the same laptop since 2014 and I’ve never seen an error message like that before. I’ve never seen an error message like that on any computer, and I’ve spent thousands of hours looking at computer screens.
At the end of August, the longest war in US history ended in catastrophic defeat after 20 years of war, a trillion dollars, and 2,000 dead US troops. Not only were our forces unable to execute an orderly retreat, we lost a war to a country that can’t feed itself. I was a bit depressed by the news but others I knew who had served there were devastated by the news. About this time, a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel made a public statement where he criticized the generals for abandoning the main airport in Kabul before all Americans and US allies had been evacuated. For making this perfectly reasonable statement, he was court martialed, forcibly admitted into a mental hospital, and ended up getting a general discharge just like me. All I can say is that once enough common sense gets purged from the military, defeat is inevitable. It was even more depressing to contemplate that if I or any of my comrades had given the last full measure of their devotion there, Biden would have pretended to care for possibly as long as 30 seconds before checking his watch during the memorial ceremony. To call the outcome outrageous is like saying the Mt Everest is above sea level.
Dearest Derpy:
How goes the job hunt? Last I heard a Christian school was going to hire you.
I got another teaching job offer today. I’ll hold that in reserve until I get officially hired by the school whose offer I already accepted.
I’ve been spending way too much time in bed. Not sure why I lack energy/motivation. I ought to be writing and going to the gym at least. Too much down time, literally.
A visual aid for the glitchy walk sign: https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2023/08/more-weird-glitches.html
My latest novella, Hired Raygun, is 20% done. Yay me.
Good on your for writing.
Get outside, get some vitamin D.
I was four hours away from you, on a boat in a big storm today. Woof! It was tiring.
I have the daughter with me, we are identifying turtles and frogs at a pond. Golf carts full of kids everywhere here.
Cocoon finally happened at The Villages?
Brooks posted an article about lithium mining that has a math mistake. 2 million liters is not 238,000 gallons, it’s more like 500,000 because 1 gallon is about 4 liters. Not surprised. Journalists make simple math mistakes all the time.
Many articles on global warming contain worse mistakes as journalists can’t distinguish between converting temperature and converting temperature change. A change of 1 degree C is equivalent to a change of 1.8 degrees F.
I wrote a better line but the phone ate it when I pressed submit.
Celsius starts with “C” like Commie and California.
I’ll have you know on good authority that there are a thousand trillionaires in America.
I have an enevelope with $110 Trillion* over there.
*Zimbabwe dollars.
Had shown. Geez, I only scored a 99 on the ASVAB.
My school system held the ASVAB test on the same day as the PSAT/NMSQT.
I don’t know if it was deliberate but it had the effect of shunting of the top academic performers to the PSAT and skipping the ASVAB.
Redeeming fact was that we could take AsVAB voluntarily later if we wanted.
Oof… I’m going to have to feel sorry for Gregg Berhalter if he loses his job on a shit call.
Much as I enjoy 40k (had a nice game at a buddy’s house on Saturday – finally played a full 4 rounds – and it only took us 6 hours). Slowly getting smoother…dunno if I’ll get another game this summer.
That said…this game looks really aesthetically appealing – and a good one for painting practice too. Some good vids on it here and at youtube.
https://wargamesatlantic.com/collections/quar/products/this-quars-war-clash-of-rhyfles
The style of the sculpts just isn’t gelling with me. I can’t put my finger on what’s getting in the way.
Hey Derp.
When the guys came by to ask about your computer, did they touch it or interact with it? Just curious.
It’s been about a year since the FBI came to my apartment to ask me about my experimental computer, by which time it had been off and disassembled for 3 months.
The browser on that computer mysteriously got scrambled for a few months. It got unscrambled somehow after I emailed my autobiography to a computer expert in early 2022.
link
The browser it used is called Chromium. The gray box near the middle says YouTube. Everything else on the computer worked fine.
It’s that time again. Top of the morning to ya!
😋☕🎩
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWcN5YxuYc
🎶🎶🎷🎸💃
Good morning, Sean, U, and Stinky!
How goes?
So far, so good, but I have to work the WHOLE DAY today! 😒 Got initial payroll data submitted on time yesterday, and at the last minute caught that the one employee eligible to join our 401(k) plan as of 7/1 hadn’t opened his account yet, so I browbeat him into getting that done. Today, final inspection & approval of payroll, then the rest of my month-end stuff.
How about you?
The store was out of Diet Dew 😱
GAAAAAAH! 😨 You may need to start stockpiling the stuff!
I’m not out just yet, I always buy ahead of necessity.
Oh, thank goodness! So you WILL be able to function today!
🙂
CBS Philly just ran a bit about how “Summer Covid” is gonna get you. Mask up, bitches!
Really? You tards still banging that drum?
I’m more confused as to why you’re watching CBS.
It’s been the least commie station (of the big 3) for Philadelphia area news. I try to stay informed since we have multiple crews working in the region each day.
Yet another article about how bad Biden’s performance in the debate but this stood out : “There were other high-profile attendees – by a few answers in, Rob Reiner was screaming about losing and Jane Fonda had tears in her eyes, according to people in the room.”
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/30/politics/democratic-party-replacement-worries-joe-biden/index.html
The pleasure I get from those two assholes’ displeasure disturbs me…I need to start going to church or something.
Yeah? Your guilt is misplaced. Someone was asking the other day what happened to all o f the 55gal barrels we used to collect commie tears after the 2016 election. We need them again. Commie tears….so sweet, so delicious.
I don’t mind seeing them getting metaphorically smashed in the mouth, I just try to guard against enjoying it too much.
So you had a schadenfreudian slip?
Freedomtoons nailed it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PS00nItbD4
I dont know about “summer covid” but Ive had a sinus/head-cold thing for the past few days thats been whipping my ass.
suh’ fam
whats goody
I had that a week ago. It lingered annoyingly. I finally knocked it out with some Sudafed.
Id do the same but I need to be at least mildly functional in the office.
Sudafed hits me like the shit that killed MIchael Jackson.