Good morning. Hello. How are you? #355
Window tinting laws, journaling vs GMMHAY, Ubiquiti hack, loser Richard Stallman, gardening anxiety and bureaucracy in many forms
Good morning. Hello. How are you? I am good. Just back from the weekly grocery run. Everything went fine. There are no snow peas or banana peppers anywhere. That is weird. Maybe it’s seasonal. There are no bean sprouts either. They’re canned so I don’t see how that’s seasonal.
But really what struck me this morning is something that’s struck me many times down here living in the rural south: just how many people completely flaunt the absurd window tinting laws and totally get away with it. I mean, the law is stupid. I think we all would all put money down on betting that, when someone actually digs into the history of window tinting laws in America, they are going to be driven by racism, over-policing, or, most likely, both. The fact that they are so capriciously enforced only reinforces the suspicion. I counted on the way home from the Walmart (it was early so there weren’t many cars I was being careful, honest). Fully one third of the cars on the road have an illegal tint. Now, in this state there is some vague “medical exemption” that of course makes zero sense. And in any case it’s BS because they’re supposed to be displaying a sticker and none of them are. This guy on reddit says that when you do your inspection, if you roll your windows down, they aren’t allowed to roll them back up? God. This is just so dumb.
It also needs to be said, of course, it’s one more completely harmless thing that we can’t have in America due to stupid laws but we can definitely have plenty of guns.
Programming note: It is apparently the Beachcomber in Quincy, not the beloved Beachcomber in Wellfleet that is closing. I made this mistake because I saw the link about the Beachcomber from an old Boston rock friend who said “this is sad, we played there lots.” Now I’m wondering if that friend was, like, playing a different Beachcomber on the cape while we were all rocking out in Wellfleet. Did he make the same mistake I did? Or was i missing a bunch of awesome rock shows in the early 90’s at a different Beachcomber. Because my god I totally would have gone to see Tribe at the Quincy Beachcomber.
Second programming note: As a friend pointed out, my transition from Mark Kozelek to my theory about not hitting on people ever was a jarring one, and I think it caused some confusion. In my head, I was picking up on the comment a few days ago when I said “There is much more to say about this, but I don’t have time right now,” and I did a crappy job at bringing the more casual reader up-to-speed on where “we” were in that conversation. I did not mean to imply “well fuck it if we can’t just whip our dick out we should pack up our toys and go home.” It was unintentionally clunky and I apologize. It’s actually a very difficult thing with these emails. I write them mostly like a journal (okay, well, the sanitized portion of a journal) and journals (in my head) are read linearly. So you can just sort of pick up a topic from a week before and continue it without a bunch of throat clearing and introduction. But of course these aren’t read by you guys, or at least not all of you guys, as a journal, as a linear piece. People skim. People miss days. That is completely okay! But it does require a bit more signposting. This is one of the reasons I’ve started the “subtitle” thing up above, so I can find older entries more easily and go post back to them. I probably should have done that there.
Third programming note! I think I will actually get to the Q&A entry this weekend. So if you have any questions, send em in!
Fourth programming note (wow, is this just all programming notes today?): VW lied, or changed their mind, or something, about Voltswagen. The reports are all over the map. It was an april fool’s joke that accidentally got leaked early. Leave aside the terrible taste of a company mostly known for an emissions scandal making an april fools joke about going green but, nope, psych! I suspect that they got cold feet because people are mean and mocked them and it’s a shame they are not GMHHAY you readers because maybe they could have gotten the positive support they needed to continue on their greenwashing quest. But, alas, they are not, and they chickened out. Maybe. It’s unclear. This is what we get for reporting breaking news.
With that lesson not learned, let’s report some more breaking news! An ex-employee at Ubiquiti, the “good guys” of wifi routers, is whistleblowing that their recent hack was super bad and not the minor incident that Ubiquiti lead us to believe, and that they lied when they said that client credentials were not obtained, so, yeah, another nice, massive hack out there. I used to be a dedicated Ubiquiti user, but in my recent re-do of the wifi I went back to Asus partially because of Ubiquiti’s insistence on using their own cloud. Whew. But it’s hugely disappointing when one of the rare “good guy” companies in tech turns out to be evil.
Yesterday was another rough day. Today will be too. Then I think things will calm down a bit. First thing in the morning I had to get on this long, tedious phone call with Timehop’s bank about documents they wanted. I hadn’t heard from them in a month, then out of the blue they were like we need these documents right now you have to use this brokedown portal in a very specific way to send them to us or it won’t count and the portal, of course, didn’t work (Chase never has actual, working portals). So I email my rep and she’s like “I’ll call you right now to fix it” so after them ignoring me completely for a month, now I have to get on the phone right this second to fix it. So I get that done then I have to turn to the calls I actually needed to make, which firstly involved fixing a prescription of my mom’s. We got this prescription from a doctor, I went to fill it, they filled the thing without saying anything was weird, and I come home and there is a SINGLE PILL in the bottle. They were smart enough to attach the original prescription from the doctor to show that the doctor made the mistake and not them but heaven forbid they say anything when filling it. This happened Friday morning, and Friday I immediately called the clinic to get it fixed, which also took an hour or so, but they said they were going to fix it. I gave CVS all day Monday to text me the text saying “okay your prescription’s ready” and it never happened. So I new I needed to tackle it ASAP. Which to call first? I call CVS. Takes a while to get a human but eventually I did, and I explain my problem, but this guy — there are two profiles for my mom at CVS because they messed that up a while ago, but it’s generally been fine. But no, he has to merge them right now before he can help me. And, he tells me, this means he has to manually copy and paste all the info. And he is obviously somewhat OCD because it can’t wait, all of the sudden, and he has to do it with me on the phone, so I have to sit there on the phone for twenty minutes while this guy learns how to use a computer. And finally, when that’s all done, he’s like “oh yeah, the prescription’s all fixed come in whenever.” Heaven forbid he tell me that to begin with.
Then I gotta call my mom’s therapist people again to pay her bill in advance because they “aren’t allowed to keep credit cards on file” and this is exactly one of those things I already wrote about and if this was a standup act this would be considered a callback and it’d be really funny and/or reinforce the exasperation of my morning, but now I’m all paranoid people don’t remember that incident so I ruined it. Great.
Also, while I’m on the subject of pharmacy idiocy, I am sorry but their policy of using only the actual name of a medication and not the brand name is tedious, obfuscating and precious. I get why they do it, because they are probably giving you a generic and they don’t want to misrepresent. A few years back they seem to have struck a pretty solid balance between sort of teaching you the generic name, and not lying about which you’re getting, but also being accessible and helpful by using the brandname. Oftentimes they’d say both. But now? Nope. At least not at CVS. Try and get a pharmacist to say Lasix or Zocor or something. Nope. Just the technical name. The longer you’ve had a pill, this is fine, but when it’s a new prescription, and/or you’re managing a lot of them, especially for someone else, it’s overwhelming. Everyone says the local pharmacy down the street is much better. I will move to them once the pandemic’s over, since they don’t have a drive through. But I bet already that moving a pharmacy is a bitch. Not looking forward.
Next morning thing (I swear I haven’t even gotten to 11 AM in describing my day yesterday), I deal with a new referral for my mom. I got a test that said “Has referred you to a specialist. Dial XXX-XXX-XXXX and press 4.” I loved that text. The “Has” is capitalized, so it’s not, like, a tech problem where the doctor’s name or clinic name didn’t come through. It’s just coded to be vague. So I call them and we start sorting it out and they’re like “oh yeah, you have this referral but actually I can’t give it to you because her Medicare says her blood doesn’t qualify” which is kind of hilarious. Like… I don’t actually think they’re wrong? The referral was for a double-check to rule out something unlikely. But also… you made the referral? Why are you telling me this. Make it or do not. Then let me know.
One thing I will say though: When dealing with the health care industry, everyone should pretend they’re calling on behalf of someone else. Medical professionals will tell me things they would never tell my mom. They’ll be honest in a way they’d never be honest to the patient. This is true to the extent that I am thinking of faking a POA and Health Directive giving, like, “Mick Lebb” heath authority or something. It’s crazy how different they speak to me than my own doctors speak to me.
So next, also before 10 AM, we find out we need a new EIN letter from the IRS. This hasn’t historically been a problem, and Chase didn’t technically say it was, but I can see the writing on the wall. Apparently we never got one when we changed the company name. So Kyu calls the IRS and it takes an hour on the phone. You have to do this yourself you can’t have your accountant do it. And then they’re like “okay we can get you this letter one of two ways: fax, if you give us a fax number right now, and otherwie we can mail it to you in 2-3 weeks.” I mean. Of course. Who is even surprised?
Also! Related to taxes. My county has completed its property tax assessment. Every four years the county reassesses everyone’s property values. The county is probably psyched that this lined up with a global pandemic and a national housing shortage. It’s not as bad here as it is where you live, but it’s still a hotter market than it’s been in years. So of course everyone’s assessments went up and they’re all moaning on Nextdoor. A few people are honest about it: “well, it went up, but its still less than the appraisal I got last year” or whatever. But so many people are just so up in arms that the government was accurate about the value of their house. And I gotta say, they were shockingly accurate. Within, like, $10k from the private appraisal we got last year to refinance. It is a little weird. I’ve never known of a tax assessment to be so accurate. Aren’t they always a little lower? I mean, no cause to complain or anything, but still. I am impressed.
I’m worried about my dirt. I think it needs more peat moss and a bit more phosphorus. I’m worried I put too much nitrogen in. I’m worried I didn’t do it early enough. Apparently you’re supposed to let your dirt sit for like a month??? Mine is only sitting a week. I really hope I didn’t fuck this up before I got started. I’m panicking a bit. I’m thinking of cheating and going and buying a ton of bagged dirt. I am really trying to avoid buying a bunch of bagged dirt. But it’s gonna suck if none of my plants work because the dirt’s wrong. I do have an acidity meter. I’m gonna check it today, if I remember. But… I am panicking! Gardening moment of truth!
Yesterday I spent a decent amount of time so angry about Richard Stallman’s return to the board of the Free Software Foundation. I mean, it really is just complete bullshit. Bad man loses job because of horrible things and then just one day, out of the blue, tells everyone he’s taking it back. Like… I moved on from the free software movement over a decade ago and mostly think the whole thing is BS these days, especially the FSF’s overly narrow, constrained version of it. Who has time for these things. But my sense of injustice, of people playing unfair, of bad people winning. It’s like a throbbing headache in these situations. I can’t calm down about it. Seriously, that guy can go screw.
Let’s do a mix. I’m backed up on the “just a mix” mixes, so you get one today. It’s a good one, though. All over the map on the old and new all over the map stylistically. You won’t get Chris Brokaw into Paula Abdul on one of those machine-made Spotify mixes, lemme tell ya. That’s the kind of quality transitions you get around here.
Hrm I guess no additional imagery today. I only took a few pictures yesterday - some of Brown Bear, some of my Bark Psychosis and Mountain Goats colored vinyl (I keep an archive of photos of my colored vinyl and it is very satisfying). But i will spare you those. I will try to remember to take some photos for you guys, or watch some YouTube videos or something. But until tomorrow, take care!
i would totally gawk at your colored vinyl—it's been so fun picking up color editions of new (or classic) records! i actually waited THREE MONTHS for a blue vinyl dua lipa from urban outfitters—is that embarrassing? i can't tell.
Oh and...New Mexico has the most tinted windows I've ever seen anywhere and I've lived all over the country. You cannot see the people inside...which makes driving a lot less fun but the Sun is wicked harsh and hot here at 7000+ feet so it makes sense. Here's a link to NM laws: https://www.tinting-laws.com/new-mexico/
You might find it interesting. I have no idea how a cop would measure if 20% of light can get in but I found you bringing this up as very synchronistic because since I moved here I've been dreaming of getting my windows tinted. Not just to keep cooler and get less sun damage but so that my dog isn't having to cram into the only shaded spot in the wagon so she doesn't spontaneously combust while we drive to the dog park.