We’re #7!

Climbing up in the polls, Minnesota takes the 7th position in number of COVID-19 hospitalizations. Why? Because nobody here is taking it seriously. No masks, no vaccine requirements, public schools are wide open, who cares if Grandma dies.

I talked with my son the Army Major this afternoon, and the military takes it seriously, that’s for sure. They require vaccinations. He has just been shipped off to participate in planning a Southeast Asian military exercise, and they make sure the Army isn’t infecting the world. First thing, they park him in quarantine quarters in Bangkok: no visits, can’t leave the room, can’t fraternize with his fellow soldiers, nothing. It’s like prison for a week before they let him out to make restricted, official duty tours to check on the status of the exercise, then he comes back to Bangkok for organizational meetings and to get thoroughly tested before flying him back. It’s no fun, but I’m impressed. That’s what it takes.

Meanwhile, the University of Minnesota just casually opened its doors to all the students, let them come flooding back in, with very few restrictions other than requiring masks in campus buildings. I am not impressed. The state’s response to the growing pre-winter surge in infections is to offer $200 to teenagers who get vaccinated (that’s good), encourage oldsters to get booster shots (I qualify!), and nada else. I say bring back the mask mandate, demand that people have to carry a vaccine passport to use public facilities, and get serious about dealing with the problem once and for all.

Also, tell the lunatic man-babies who whine about muh freedumbs to sit the fuck down, shut up, and be responsible adults.

She’s three. She was two, but now she is three.

It’s now official. Iliana blows out the candles on her chocolate covered chocolate donut with chocolate ice cream.

There was a problem. The donut was covered with gooey chocolate and the ice cream was melting, which made picking it up with her fingers problematic. Problem solved.

When the bulk had been gnawed down, then it was time for a little finesse.

Donut conquered. Do not get in the way of this fierce three year old.

Now it’s time for presents. There’s a cat trapped in the chimney of the dollhouse, so she’ll teach it how to use claws to climb down.

How can a child’s birthday party not be a disaster?

I attended my granddaughter’s third birthday party yesterday, with some trepidation. I like her very much, but I’m an experienced parent, and I know how these things usually go. Take an excited child, give her lots of attention, stuff her with sweet rich treats, and spoil her with presents, and you just know there’s going to be at least one tantrum and that the event will end in frustrated tears.

This party had more than its share of concerns.

One, a terrible awful grandpa. I’m still dealing with pain and mobility issues from tendinitis, which I’m dealing with with medication that keeps me going through the day, but unfortunately, as it wears off, I crash hard. I was afraid that, come the evening, I was going to turn into a saggy, cranky tired old man. More than usual, anyway.

Two, this turned into a big party, the largest my daughter has held at her house — both sets of grandparents! Cousins! Friends! — all focusing their attention and cheer on one little girl. Overstimulation city, man.

Three, Iliana had helped make her birthday dessert. She chose to get chocolate donuts, which she drenched with chocolate frosting, and topped with chocolate ice cream. I feared those little heaps of sugary intensity.

Fourth, every one of her adult visitors brought one or more presents. They piled up on one wall, and it was going to be an impressive haul.

I predicted doom. All the ingredients were there.

And then everything was fine! I don’t know how, exactly.

Skatje solved the cranky grandpa problem by working all afternoon to make a fabulous vegetarian meal for the adults, a delicious Italian vegetable soup and lasagna. Grandpa turned into a mellow, satisfied old man with a warm glow in his tummy.

Iliana pigged out on chocolate donuts and ice cream by literally sticking her snout in it and licking it all up, happily. She ate as much as she wanted, which was not excessive, and then stopped and skipped off to play. She opened her presents with enthusiasm and was excited about all of them, and solved all the concerns about spoiled little monsters having tantrum by just being darned cheerful about everything. Her mom and grandpa helped assemble her new dollhouse, we played a quiet game for a while (the bunny family and the alpaca family were moving in, but the alpacas were frightened and hiding because the rabbits were such good pouncers). Then she toddled off to bed where her mom read a book to her and she fell asleep.

Thus was I deprived of a dramatic story. My predictions were all falsified. All I can assume is that Skatje and Kyle are better parents than I was, and managed to produce a well-adjusted happy child.

Things must be different in Canada

What a strange video.

It makes perfect sense — if you’re asked to show proof of vaccination, just show them. I’ve got my vaccination card in my wallet right now. If you’re asked to put on a mask, put on a mask. Easy. I’ve always got one, and a spare in my pocket.

What’s disturbing is that I have never, not once, been asked to show that I’m vaccinated. We aren’t required to wear a mask anywhere in local businesses (I do, anyway), and even when the state had a mask mandate, I’d go to the store and see half the people running around maskless, and no one except me would ask them to put them on. A couple of times people made furious scenes when I pointed them at the signs.

Here’s Stevens County, Minnesota this month.

We had a big spike in cases a few weeks ago, and now it’s steadily rising. Does anyone care? Oh hell no. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to need advice on how to respond to a request to show my vaccination card, it’s about as necessary as being told I need to have a license to walk my dragon. These things are equally nonexistent in my community.

Fall Break, sorta

This was me yesterday: the diners demanded to be fed, so I was flicking tasty flies to my spider friends. We still have supply chain issues — I barely had enough for the mob — but they’re easing with many maggoty bottles promising to produce a bounty in the next few days. You probably don’t know the relief of seeing a half dozen bottles swarming with fat active maggots, but spider people do.

Today, though, I have to scurry out of the relatively benign kingdom of Minnesota to visit the Republican stronghold of Wisconsin, which currently holds my sweet innocent granddaughter hostage. We’re celebrating Iliana’s birthday, so I get to go hang out at a three year old’s party, and have chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream (hold the flies) and read children’s books and play let’s-pretend games.

We come back first thing tomorrow, when I must complete a mass of grading. It’s Fall Break, we get a whole two days off, which really isn’t time off because it’s just there to allow us to catch up on the backlog of work from the first half of the semester before we snap.

Now I’ve lost GMail

This is annoying: I’ve lost access to my email. I was trying to install some software that needed to access my Google account, I mistyped my password, and it then sent me into security hell, with codes sent to various devices that I had to type into various other devices, and somewhere in there I typed the wrong 6 digits into the right device or the right 6 digits into the wrong device, or something, and Google decided to teach me a lesson and locked me out of my account for 48 hours. I guess at that time it’ll allow me to reset my password and go through musical phone-tablet-laptop-desktop games again. I hope I get it right next time.

Anyway, the bad news is that I won’t get any email for two days, and I’m also locked out of my YouTube account. So if you have anything urgent to write to me, be patient.

The good news is that I won’t get any email for two days, except for official email through my university account, so nothing important from students will be missed.

I’m actually finding it kind of hard to complain about taking an email vacation.

I’m full of alien substances now

I got shot up with Pfizer a few months ago, yesterday I got a buttload of pain-numbing happy juice, and today…

When can I officially be designated a cyborg transhuman mutant alien hybrid? I’m looking forward to when my nictating membranes, extra limbs and nipples, and compound eyes kick in.

I hope you’re all getting all of your vaccinations so we can team up and take over the world.

Ah, so that’s how we kill Facebook

We just have to spread the word about what Facebook is really about.

Tech reporter Kevin Roose argues that what he sees in the revelations is a company that is in a desperation mode. He says that what keeps Facebook executives up at night is not the threats of lawsuits (that it has ample resources to fight) or fines (that it can easily afford to pay) or Congressional investigations or government regulations (that it feels that it can circumvent) but an existential threat that they cannot control: they are losing the desired younger demographic that is the key to their revenue stream. He points out that social media companies come and go as young people’s tastes change and that Facebook may be seeing its future as similar to that of Friendster and MySpace, both major players of their time that eventually became irrelevant. While Facebook has outlasted them, it is already seen by young people as a space for old people, which is a devastating image for the company..

All these problems have led to speculations that Facebook may be on the way out, sooner than we may think.

Oh, yeah, Facebook: that’s the place where uncool boomer grandpas and dotty old great-aunts go to share racisms and stupid conspiracy theories, right? Why would anyone want to join that? Everyone would rather hang out in the cool spaces, like Instagram.

Instagram is where vapid “influencers” pretend to be celebrities when all they actually are are shallow poseurs who can be lured off to Fyre Festivals. No one wants to be seen dead there. The hip people are flocking to…whatever the next fad is.

With the right degree of cynical ennui, the language of disaffected teenagers, we can kill off any nascent social media juggernaut!

What to say when you meet vaccine protesters

It’s easy. A few lessons:

Follow their examples.