dannyabrams-blog-blog

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

What a beginning to 2021

So I have been slacking on writing for this month, but that has been due to my withdrawal due to everything that has been going on. Personally I got a job with ubreakifix and then a little over a week after starting I was laid off due to covid business slow down. That hit me not as hard as being let go from Dominos, but still it hit me while I was still down. I got to see an insurrection because a little less than half the population could not accept that their politician lost the election. There was an inauguration that did not feel like it was anything close to a traditional inauguration. Well I guess since I am writing again, I should break it down a little bit more.

So I had started a job with UbreakIfix early in January.  It looked like it would be a lot of fun because it was something I have always taken interest in.  I was able to finish the 12 day online training program within the 6 or 7 days I was actually working for them. The layoff is an interesting thing, they are applying for one of them there pandemic loans... so if they get that, I would have to be given my job back.  The plus side is that the unemployment is supposed to be automatic, so I guess I will keep on applying for jobs and see what happens first.

On January 6, 2021 when Congress was supposed to get together and certify the election and formally announce the new President and Vice President, President Trump incited a riot early in the day.  This turned into a national event since the rioters broke into the Capitol building, hung Trump flags in place of American flags, stole property, defaced property and generally threatened all the members of Congress.  Mr. Trump did a half hearted attempt to calm people in the riot, but he was then removed from every social media platform because in his attempt to calm people it was just as obvious that he was asking for them to continue. 

Due to the fact that there was almost no security, and the security that was there for the riot was at best ineffective(they let the rioters enter, and some even took selfies with the rioters) the inauguration had all the security. There were apparently more troops in the Capitol for the inauguration than in the current theaters of action, Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Mr. Trump apparently decided that he was not going to attend so he bolted out of D.C. hours before the ceremony. Due to the Pandemic there was almost nobody at the ceremony. Even later in the night when they decided to have a national primetime broadcast they had no crowds. I am hoping this is not the new tradition for inauguration.

Well that is all for now, so remember to be you and have a great time!

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

New Year, New Me? New You?

So it is the new year. That means it is time to reevaluate my life... wait, I’ve already been doing that? How about you reevaluate your life... wait, I can not force you to do that either? Well how about we look at the world and see what is going on then.

How about that there American Election. Is it still going on? I thought the election was finalized a while ago.  It appears that because someone is a sore loser, it is not. This past week has been filled with court challenges that were dismissed due to lack of standing. We have seen threats of violence against the people who have no reason to have threats of violence, like the vice president, because they wont break the law and void out a popular vote. This is depressing to the point that I can not wait till January 20 so that it can be put to rest.

How about that stimulus from the American Government to the people.  Well we only got $600 to pay bills and rent at the end of the year. It was a possibility that we could have gotten $2000 but someone thought an amount that would be equal to a livable wage for a month would be considered socialisms and we can not have that in a country that is as dependent on commercialism as it is on paying people a below poverty wage.

How about that there pandemic? Well it is still going on. People have apparently done everything possible to extend it. That includes wasting and misusing the vaccine, not wearing masks, not staying home, and I am sure other things as well that I am not thinking of,

Well so even though the new year has come, it has not made a difference in the world around us. I will challenge myself to try to make a better world this year, even if I do not know how I will do it. I will also challenge anyone reading this to do the same... even if it is just a difference in one person’s life it is that person’s world.

Till next time, remember you are loved, and accepted.  Be Yourself.

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

Let us talk about the holidays.

So I have been reading/watching/hearing a lot about the holiday season this year. I say this year, but it tends to be every year for the past decade, decade and a half. What I hear is that people still think Christmas is a religious holiday. It can be, yes, but I do not feel like it is anymore to most people.

I say this because Hanukkah is a religious holiday that is celebrated around the same time as Christmas. You can see the obvious difference between the two of them easily in than that Hanukkah is a Jewish celebration, and Christmas is supposed to be Christian celebration. However, you do not see Hanukkah commercialized to the point that people go to the mall to tell someone what they want for each day of Hanukkah. You do not see Hanukkah ads for lamp oil, or the menorah being used to sell soda or other products. You do however see every iconic Christmas... thing, used to sell everything from trees and sodas to cars and vacations. 

What I am getting at here is that Christmas is not a religious holiday, unless your religion is commercialism. It is more of a cultural holiday, and it is needed in a capitalistic society like in the USA. I remember being a kid and watching Sesame Street and learning that Christmas was a day to spend with the ones you love and care about. I remember going to church hearing the same story over and over again and not getting anything from it that matched any of the practices that we did, other than giving presents and doing the advent thingy. However we did not get presents because December 25 was our birthday or we were the messiah, we got them because we were good. We feasted, played, and spent time with our family and friends.

I found out about 20 years ago that Christmas was taken from a pagan holiday to help increase the chances of people becoming Catholic. As I have learned, they did that with Easter as well. It makes sense that a religion that has almost no holidays that involve feasting and celebrating to take holidays that centered around the Solstice and Equinox since they already had a great many people celebrating those regardless of their religion.

That all being said, I observe the societal version of Christmas.  I do not observe any religious meaning to the holiday. If I say Merry Christmas to you it is not in any religious sense, it means have a good time with your family and friends on a day that should be dedicated to spending time with them. I do not say Happy Holidays because I will generally reach out on each holiday to people. 

Before I forget though, I do not know anything about Kwanzaa, so I can not add an analysis of that to my Christmas views.  

Till next time, remember you are loved, and I will see you then.

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

Setting Goals For the New Year

So I have found out that by setting goals for anything, I tend to fail at them.  I do not know why, but that seems to be the case. I think it might be due to my nature to set them too high, or set unobtainable goals. Yeah, that is the problem, not my inability to keep track of them. 

To that end, I will be setting goals that are easily obtainable, at least they should be should I be able to keep track of them and remember.

This new year I will do the following:

I will eat out only 3 times a week, this includes fast food, or restaurants.

I will save 10% of my paycheck every payday by taking the cash out and setting it aside.

I will take a planned vacation to Las Vegas, even if it is only a 3 day Tuesday to Thursday trip.

I will cook more to eat healthier.

I will find a way to get the help I need in diagnosing my mental disorders, it will be helpful to know if it is depression, anxiety, adhd, add or if I am just normal... Too much mental health tik tok is fun.

I will continue to be alone though, I do not think I will have the mental energy to be outgoing enough to change that.

I will go to a Royals home game.

I will strengthen my friendships to bring them back to something resembling what they were before my time with Dominos.

I will go out and do Karaoke at least twice, should the coronavirus be tamed.

These goals are easy enough to obtain, so this will be fun. If you noticed that none of them are in relation to jobs other than saving money. That is intentional because I am not trying to rebuild my professional life. I spent the past 7 years focused on that and I have been suffering silently in my personal life. It is time to change that.

As always, remember you are loved and I will see you next time.

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

Wait, this is still a thing?

So as I have been going through a rough time looking for work, rebuilding friendships that have suffered, and just trying to find a reason for existence, so... I have decided to continue writing.  This has helped me in the past organize my thoughts and maintain focus on the things I need to. That being said, I do not really have a continual topic to write about so I guess I will just write what I feel.

This week, December 06, 2020 to December 12, 2020 has seen a lot of things happen in the American sphere of... things. This week we saw an approval of one COVID-19 vaccine, as well as a slew of political theater. A quick recap of the vaccine would be that it was approved by the FDA and is currently being produced and sent out to be used. That is a good thing, even if it will prove to be problematic based on the time scale of the development and limited testing.

The political aspect of this past week is not as easy to sum up. There were two petitions to the Supreme Court this week that were dismissed with no recourse for the Trump administration. One was to have Pennsylvania stop certification of their votes.  The second was brought by the state of Texas to throw out the votes in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. The second one was backed by 18 states to subvert the states, and 22 states to back them. The president tried to put himself with the state of Texas.  The first was shot down due to a lack of evidence, and the second was dismissed due to lack of standing by Texas. While Trump is still fighting to overturn the will of the American people, everyone else has read the writing on the walls and are moving on. 

A quick summary of what is going on in my life is that I continued to apply to jobs. I received one interview as a cell phone repair tech, and I did several things to apply for Olive Garden, including a prescreen video interview. I am trying to get Uber started so I have some form of income when my unemployment application is declined, but it keeps on saying that my stuff is pending. 

That is it for this week, so till next time...

Remember you are loved for who you are, so be who you are.

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

Holy mother of your God, I have a Tumblr.

So I am currently unemployed.  I lost my job this week, reasons were not made clear to me, but I can come up with half a dozen reasons.  That might be my biggest problem though, my negativity. 

I bring this fact up because I was reading my old posts from like 2012 or so and I was talking about how I was expecting to not be rehired with the post office.  

Spoiler alert:  I got to keep my post office job for another year or so after I was worried about it. I was laid off though when they moved the job to Salt Lake City. Guess I should have taken them up on the offer to transfer then.

I bring this up because I feel like I should start writing again. I also feel like chronicling what has happened in the nearly decade long pause on my writing of these things...

So here we go, and update in the life of Danny.

First lets start with what has not changed much.  I am still single, well recently single after a 4 month relationship with a younger person.  When it started we did refer to ourselves as boyfriend and girlfriend, but after the ending I see now that was a societal thing.  Since the end of that relationship I have returned to the non-binary, not in your face about it lifestyle I have always lived, and my former partner has continued to develop their own gender and sexual identity.  Before you ask, they ended it and I am still not sure as to the why, but I see that they are most likely better off.  I am not, but that might have to deal with me almost being 40 and alone most of the time.

Oh yeah, that has not changed at all really. I am still alone in a crowd, alone in my head and even though I have a roommate and was able to keep a few friends around, I spend most of my time alone. I still play videogames from time to time, read a lot of news, listen to music, watch videos on the internet and some select TV. Still not a fan of most TV.

I own my car, but I did get a newish one a number of years ago when I was in an accident with someone who failed to yield the right of way. Looking back at it I should have gotten a lawyer, but since it was a driver for the Wichita Children’s Home I do not feel all that bad about possibly being given the short stick.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, I am currently unemployed. I was let go involuntary this past Monday. I had spent the last 7 years working for the local Dominos franchise and had made my way from assistant manager to store manager to a district manager in training. To be honest I saw the writing clearly on the wall a few days before it happened, but for the past few months I could tell I was not welcome in the clique that had been forming. People keeping secrets and talking about others behind their back, I’ve been there most of my life so... yeah. 

Currently I am trying to get my life together, heal from the first relationship I have had in like 2 decades and find purpose in my life again. I hope to continue to write here since I find that stream of thoughts has become my Facebook and I do not use Twitter anymore. I did for a time view TicTok as a viable alternative to YouTube, but I have decided that is more for the younger generations when I got to what was self-referenced as Lesbian Blacksmith TicTok. 

If you have read to this point, thank you. If you only read part of this, understand that I will probably be writing full thoughts that start as random banter between myself and everyone that I interact with after they have fully formed into concepts and ideas.

Till next time, be you and do not let anyone else tell you not to be who you are. You are a unique individual and you are loved by people. If you do not fell that anyone in your life, including the supposed non-conditional love of family, loves you... talk to me. I do not judge for I am a broken individual struggling with everything from social interactions to gender identity and everything in-between. I do not turn away anyone deserving and I might be able to point you in the direction of better help or support. Most importantly I DO NOT QUIT myself or anyone who needs a friend.

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

Guns and people

Now I know gun control is a hot button issue in my country of America, I see people complain about the laws all the time on Facebook and Twitter.  I am not a constitutional scholar, nor am I a lawyer.  Heck I barely consider myself intelligent enough to make coherent opinions about things I see during my day to day observations of the world I live in.  However, that does not mean that I have no opinion about the violence that I see come from guns and the people who use them.

You can say that guns do not kill people, but people kill people and I would say you have a point.  You can also say that guns are only a tool.  I will say, however, that the only reason you would ever level a gun at another person is to kill them, or to introduce the threat of killing them.  You can argue that you have the right to have as many guns as you want under the second amendment.  I would agree to an extent...

Now for some reason I do not think when the founders of this great country were coming up with what were unalienable rights they had in mind people hoarding weapons and ammunition to the extent we see today.  Nor do I believe they thought for a moment that guns would progress to the point they are today.  I could be wrong, but I do not believe so. 

People can argue that they need an "assault" rifle to protect their home.  I can argue that if you really need an "assault" rifle to protect your home then maybe you need to form a militia with your neighbors, or maybe move to an area where the police force is competent. 

What about hunting you might say.  Well the only thing that you would really need a gun that fires quickly and has a quick reload to hunt, in my opinion, is people.  It is why in war the bolt action rifle was replaced by the automatic rifle. 

Look, I am sure that by now if you have read all this I have not changed your opinion about anything.  I did not set out to change your opinion and really I do not care one way or the other about it.  I do this because I can more than any other reason.  I fully support your decision to own guns.  I will never willingly own a gun because I know that I would do more harm to myself than I would do to anything or anyone else. 

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

Well the last time I tried to write something this flash thing lost it.

So the last time I tried to write something to tumblr they had just changed to a flash insert method of posting instead of forming a page.  I spent three hours when I should have been asleep because my work schedule had changed.  It took me all of five minuets to write what I wanted to write, and another two hours and 55 minuets to get so angry with this before I went to sleep angry.

Now I wish I could look at what I wrote but even the saved drafts never saved.  Really I don't like this style of publishing because there are many things that could go wrong, and there is no way to fix it.  The main one is that from my experience flash will just die for no reason.  I have had a page up for not more than a moment when I get the crash notification for Flash and am forced to reload the page.  Games, audio, video it is so random that I have no idea as to what is going on, and heaven help me if I have multiple pages open when Flash crashes...

What I am getting to is that while it seemed like a good idea to make this "improvement" there should be a setting so I can go back to writing on a page like an email.  If for some reason flash goes down, what can I do but lament the loss of work?  Now maybe this works for people who want to write a short quote, or a quip of a conversation.  I do not like to write like that.  I like to write little essays about what is going on in my mind, as convoluted as that can be sometimes. 

I guess this is just another adaption I would have to make in order to be part of the social internet world.  Although come to think of it, I am just a guy sitting at the table all by myself with no one paying any real attention to what I am saying.

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

Third time is a charm

So yeah... Well I had some ideas as to what to write about this week, but I really don't feel like writing about any of them.  I don't really want to put the effort into thinking about why I want to change my work schedule.  I don't really care to write about how my sleep cycle has gone to 6 am to 2 pm.  I don't want to write about how the government in my country is so god damned dysfunctional that it can not even get it's shit together to pay the bills. I don't want to write about how I feel that my state government is leading this state down a path of no state income tax, but probably lead to the necessity of local income tax. You know, as I write about all the things I don't want to write about I can think of at least one thing that I would like to write about, Need for Speed:  Most Wanted.  However I will not write about how much fun it is to drive a car around with the express intent of trying to get a higher speed than your friend.  I will just write that I liked a lot of the places to do things, and there are a lot of places to do things.  Till next time...

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

Next time...

Well like I figured, I have missed my self imposed deadline... Oh well, I am just going to make 2 quick comments and be done for this late post. 1.  The more I try to do the more I have to fail at. 2.  If I have to be on a registry of people who recently bought cold medicine because the secondary use of it is to make drugs, gun owners need to be on a registry because the secondary use of that item is to kill kids.  If they don't want to be on the registry then they can do what I do... do without. That's all for this week, Till next time...

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

A begining.

I have for quite some time wanted to write something on a weekly basis, but for one reason or another I have never gone through with it.  This year will be different... I have said that before as well... That being said, I have to be honest with myself, if I force myself into a specific topic like writing about what happened this past week or what news stories I found interesting I will fail.  To combat that I have decided that the only stipulation I will give myself is that by the time I get off of work on Friday I will have something to write about, and will write it when I get home. So till next Friday

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

One down one up.

So it has been a good long moment since I have posted something like this, but I figure I might as well. Here in no particular order, what I will spend about 98 minuets listening to at work for a while. 1. Green Day - Stop When The Red Lights Flash (2:26) 2. Ratatat - Seventeen Years (4:26) 3. Billy Talent - Try Honesty (4:15) 4. Green Day - Lazy Bones (3:34) 5. Two Door Cinema Club - Sleep Alone (3:56) 6. Coldplay - Paradise (4:37) 7. Green Day - Oh Love (5:03) 8. Green Day - Stay The Night (4:36) 9. Muse - Uprising (5:04) 10. Two Door Cinema Club - Next Year (4:11) 11. Modest Mouse - Dashboard (4:06) 12. Green Day - Stray Heart (3:44) 13. Ted Leo - Counting Down The Hours (3:07) 14. Klaxons - Echoes (3:45) 15. The Whitest Boy Alive - 1517 (3:38) 16. The Heavy - Short Change Hero (5:22) 17. Two Door Cinema Club - Someday (3:43) 18. Foo Fighters - Stacked Actors (4:16) 19. Two Door Cinema Club - Handshake (3:31) 20. Chilled Jazz Masters - Take 5 ( Dave Brubeck Quartet ) (3:25) 21. Foo Fighters - Everlong (4:10) 22. Ingrid Michaelson - Parachute (3:19) 23. Streetlight Manifesto - On & On & On (3:12) 24. Florence & The Machine - You've Got The Love (2:48) 25. Two Door Cinema Club - Sun (3:07) 26. NOFX - I Believe in Goddess (1:34)

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

Another song that has been in my head

So I tend to post the lyrics to songs that I listen to if you have not figured that out yet.  I don't do it often, but when I do I listen to the song and write what I hear.  This tends to be something close to karaoke for me, and today it is an old Green Day song, Having a Blast, off of Dookie. Takin all you down with me

Explosives duct taped to my spine

Nothin's going to change my mind.

I won't listen to anyone's last words

There's nothing left for you to say

Soon you'll be dead anyways. Well no one here is getting out alive

This time I've really lost my mind and I don't care

So close your eyes and kiss yourself good bye

And think about the times we spent and what they meant.

To me it's nothing

To me it's nothing

To me it's nothing

To me it's nothing. I'm loosing all my happiness

The happiness you pinned on me

My loneliness still comforts me.

My anger dwells inside of me

I'm taking it all out on you

And all the shit you put me through. Well no one here is getting out alive

This time I've really lost my mind and I don't care

So close your eyes and kiss yourself goodbye

And think about the times we spent and what they meant.

To me it's nothing

To me it's nothing

To me it's nothing

To me it's nothing. Do you ever think back

To another time?

Does it bring you so down that you thought you lost your mind?

Do you ever want to lead a long trail of destruction

And mow down any bullshit that confronts you?

Do you ever build up all the small things in your head?

To make one problem that adds up to nothing

To me it's nothing

To me it's nothing

To me it's nothing.

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

A song stuck in my head

There is a song by Two Door Cinema Club that I can not get out of my head.  The song name is "Something Good Can Work".  It is stuck in my head because of both the bouncing beat and the fast melodic lyric line. 

It goes kinda like this:

There's a spanner in the works you know,

You gotta step up your game to make it to the top.

So go!

Gotta little competition now,

You're going to find it hard to cope with living on your own now.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Let's make this happen girl,

You gonna show the world that something good can work and it can work for youu.

And you know that it will.

Let's get this started girl,

We're moving up we're moving up

It's been alot to change but youu will always get what you want.

Took a little time to make it a little better,

It's only going out,

Just one thing and another,

You know!

You know!

Took a little time to make it a little better,

It's only going out,

Just one thing and another,

You know!

You know!

Let's make this happen girl,

You gonna show the world that something good can work and it can work for youu.

And you know that it will.

Let's get this started girl,

We're moving up we're moving up

It's been alot to change but youu will always get what you want.

Let's make this happen girl,

You gonna show the world that something good can work and it can work for youu.

And you know that it will.

Let's get this started girl,

We're moving up we're moving up

It's been alot to change but youu will always get what you want.

Let's make this happen girl,

You gonna show the world that something good can work and it can work for youu.

And you know that it will.

Let's get this started girl,

We're moving up we're moving up

It's been alot to change but youu will always get what you want.

And because I'm not that big of an asshole, here is a link to the video on youtube:

Two Door Cinema Club - Something Good Can Work

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

What I like to watch.

Right now this is a short list.  Why?  Because I don't watch much.

Spaceballs the Animated Series

Farscape

Space Ghost Coast To Coast

Code Monkeys

The Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Royals

The Avengers

To be quite honest as I watch more I will convey that to you, the assumed reader.  

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

I'm a getting tired of this.

Some things I am getting tired of:

The Chiefs loosing preseason games because of a lack of will to play the starters.

My cable modem not wanting to stay connected to the internet for no real reason.

People at work trying to say that the way things are playing out is not right while forgetting that we work for an organization that is in a decline.

Now I can not stop any of these things that are happening, and they all affect me in a negative way.  

Mind you, the Chiefs are currently playing preseason in the Patriots style of not playing the starters and seeing what the new guys can do.  

I can and will say that my modem can not find an upstream lock at times and because of that it fails.  I wish I could do something about this, however that would mean calling cox, and I have not the will nor the time to do that till my next day off.  I guess I could try to get help off of twitter, but I will not give out non-general information about my modem or account on a third party site that I have no way of verifying who is going to see it, or how long it will remain on their servers.

As for work, I have been, and will be of the opinion that the post office is in decline.  It has been since they let the internet go on without it being a part of the postal infrastructure.  Could you imagine the profit the postal service could garner just by leveling a one cent postage on email?  Could you imagine the stop of spam email just because someone has to pay for it?  Could you imagine what it would be like to have one email that all your statements, bills, letters, certified mail, and legally bound documents came to? Sure you would have one address, possibly your name or, more likely one that relates to your street address.  You could receive any and all mail there free.  Just charge a fee to send.  I'm not saying pocket the profit, no I would want the postal service to use that money to first develop high speed internet connections in areas that people can not afford them(I'm not saying unlimited bandwidth for free, but a mail service for those without would be nice).  Then use it to pay it's bills, and then finally use the excess profit to help fund the country.  

Anyways I hope this posts since I spent 30+ minuets screwing with my modem just so it could get an upstream connection so it could be online.

[dannyabrams-blog-blog]

Unemployment

So I have been looking into this just because I know that in less than two weeks I will probably be unemployed.  I have found out according to the Kansas Unemployment Insurance System that I don't have a lot to worry about.  The scenario they use kinda mirrors mine in that the total earned in a year, blah blah blah, times this, blah blah blah, weekly job seeking, blah blah blah blah blah.... 

I don't understand how people stay on unemployment it is designed to get you off of it by revoking it for just about any reason.  The only way I will still be on unemployment for any length of time will be because there is no work.  I mean it looks like you have to submit weekly what jobs you have gone looking for, and if you don't go looking for any they cancel your unemployment.  Now I am not going to look for low wage jobs, but I am going to start reasonably with the shops around my apartment then go from there.  That's the other thing, if you have unreasonable expectations of what you are looking for, like being paid $13.00 an hour and accepting nothing less, they will revoke it for that as well.  

Also if I want to go back to school, I would have to do a state approved job training course, not going back for what I want.  This is because if I have any restrictions on when I can work, they will pull unemployment.  Honestly I think that one is bullshit.  They should let you, but on one condition.  That you can not reapply for benefits, or an extension of benefits.  

Anyways a lot of this is speculation so who knows what will really happen.  Hell for all I know I will be roped into working for the one trick pony that is the city of Wichita's calling card... aircraft.  Not really wanting to work in that industry, but beggars aint choosers.