This week saw two difficult problems arise that took a whole lot of problem-solving, panic, and unbelievable luck to solve. I had considerable evidence that my laptop computer was fatally infected with a trojan virus in spite of the subscription I had to Norton anti-virus software. And on top of that, I had to renew my driver’s license since yesterday was my birthday. And not an ordinary renew-by-computer sort of thing, but a dreaded trip to the horrid hated DMV.
The DMV was a thorny problem because Texas is a Red State and fully committed to keeping certain people with the wrong color skin, the wrong sort of last name, or the wrong size of bank account from acquiring picture IDs for the purposes of the foul crime of voting for Democrats. So, specifically, of the long list of things you were supposed to bring to get a license renewed, the birth certificate was a problem for me. I have a birth certificate, but because of a courthouse fire in Iowa in the 1970’s, it was only a photocopy of a handwritten replacement document. They had warned me when I called and asked that this would never do. I had to have an authenticated copy issued by the records department of the State of Iowa. So, I spent 50 dollars on an expedited official document by express mail, still likely to arrive after the expiration date of my license.
Of course, once I lucked out and received the document only three business days after I requested it, I discovered that the DMV had been moved from the location I had relied on for almost ten years. And when I did find the DMV office and waited in the cold in the early morning for the doors to open, I discovered that the DMV I had found didn’t actually issue driver’s licenses. Bummer. I had to try again the next day ten miles further away in Lewisville.
I fully expected to be turned away again that day for some unforeseen and petty reason. Instead, I found the opposite to be true. They saw an old white guy walking with a cane and thought, “Oh, Republican voter!” I was moved to the front of the line. The Indian lady ahead of me was not given a license because she did not have both a birth certificate and a valid passport. But I got my license with only the expiring license to prove my identity. They didn’t even need to see the birth certificate.
The computer virus was just as frustrating. The only option was to try to find the right software to remove the bug by using the infected computer to purchase one online. Since Norton had been overwhelmed, I went with McAfee and, fortunately, got a year’s subscription for 60% off the regular price. I downloaded it, spent three agonizing days on a full scan, then got a result of zero problems found and fixed. So, as further programs began crashing, I called their tech support and got a guy with a heavy Indian accent to remotely fix the problems for me. In three hours of time, he miraculously restored my computer and even removed some other unwanted programs slowing my computer which I had been unable to remove myself. It turned out that the problem may have been caused by another anti-virus program whom I accidentally downloaded with another program package, but then I refused to pay for the upgrade when it reported that it had found five seriously infected files on my computer. You can’t be too careful when downloading things from the internet, though being careful and vigilant is almost impossible when there are so many horrible things out there that you never suspected people might be capable of.
Anyway, I survived both ordeals and still managed to finish a novel manuscript and got closer to publishing another one.
Dump the Trumpy Grump
The current President of the United States initially seemed to me to be a gift from the gods of comedy. I figured it would be easy to make humorous blog posts about a clown who wears orange face paint, wears super-long red ties, and is more cartoonish behavior-wise than Yogi Bear.
But the Grumpy Trump leadership style is more depressing than even that of Rodeo Clown in Chief, George W. Bush, though Trump has managed to be accused of fewer war crimes by international tribunals. He is so relentlessly inhuman in his every deed that you can’t use exaggeration humor against him. The reality is too far over the top for that. And you can’t rely on insult humor, because he does it so much more often himself than any comedian can, and he really MEANS it. He doesn’t tell or comprehend jokes unless it makes a good excuse to claim he was only joking.
One of the things he does that bothers me the most is the use of criminals in his cabinet and departments that do all the dirty work.
Sleepy McBoing-Boing, the HUD secretary seems to be in his job to screw things up for poor people who were barely hanging on and turn them into homeless people while he commits crimes to put an expensive dining table in the HUD office for his personal use. “Let ’em eat cake,” right, Ben?
Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke, heads of the EPA and Department of the Interior are so busy spending Federal budget monies on personal uses that their departments are falling apart, and so the air we breath and the water we drink are now more at risk than they were under Obama, where it was a very real crisis having very real effects.
I think I am through posting criticisms about Trump. Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Seth Meyers do so much better at skewering the pumpkinhead than I ever could, so look to them for actual political humor of the thoughtful kind.
The only thing I want from Trump now… Now that his tax cut has cost me extra money and his healthcare meddling has made the price of insulin out of my reach… Is for the whole thing to end. He won’t resign. You can’t expect Ebola Fever or brain tumors will go away on their own. But it is so obvious that he has committed impeachable crimes that, for the good of us all, the Congress needs to get rid of him. The Dark Lord with White Hair, Mike Pence, though deeply evil, would be better.
Leave a comment
Filed under angry rant, cartoons, commentary, humor, lying, Paffooney, politics
Tagged as politics