I have an essay to type about Jim, the disabled Coast Guard veteran who lives in a van in the Walmart parking lot near me. His grandmother was a Blackfoot Indian squaw purchased in a gambling saloon by a fire and brimstone preacher who was Jim's grandfather. But Jim and his crippled knees are a different essay although he makes an appearance in this one. I also have an essay to write about my longing to be married to the recently passed Debbie Reynolds circa 1953 and to dance with her on the beach as Nat King Cole serenades us, but that is not only redundant, but also hopeless fantasy. I may as well go to Las Vegas and scour the escort service websites for a Debbie Reynolds look-alike and then have her dress up in '50s era clothing or a Singing Nun's habit and fuck her on a vinyl, paisley couch but it would only fill me with shame and self-loathing. Goodbye, Debbie. You were an actress but, damn, you played the part of the talented, lovable, buoyant sprite perfectly, the woman that men shamelessly desired even if it was only an act. 25 years of chasing your modern day equivalent has proved futile. You were one of a kind. George Michael also died recently and I want to reminisce about 1984 and WHAM! and Junior High School woes (standing alone outside a dance, listening to Cyndi Lauper serenade dancing couples in awkward gymnasium light) but there is no time today. And Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynold's daughter died a day before her mother and this is prophetic because Fisher's on-screen persona, Princess Leia, was recently manufactured circa 1977 by computer generated animation...and if anything will kill you it's the realization that you have been cloned. I want to write an essay about Star Wars phenomenon, not so much a review of the recent movie, but a study of the SW phenomenon in general. But that will have to wait for another day.
So, I am going to write about a recent experience that does not involve punditry so I will not have to delete it. I was going to write a venomous 'Open Letter to Google' but this essay will serve the same purpose of venting my frustration with the modern times. This experience involves technology failures and the philosophy of technology and false promises of utopias and also the complications of living in the van. Get comfortable because this is a long story told from within the labyrinth of Steve Jobs' twisted vision of the future. Make no mistake: we are now living in the hell of a cyborg psychopath's nightmare.
As you may already know, I live in a van. I sleep in the van on the street or in a parking lot. I do this in protest of the ridiculous prices of hotels and the absurd tradition of rent and land ownership and taxes. So I was hired to drive down to the border of Mexico and Arizona and build a solar farm on a military base. Fine. What that involves is the topic of yet another essay but the duties did cripple my hands and back. Now, when I was hired I had no address because I live in a van. In emergencies I get items delivered to General Delivery at the post office but in this case the job was not supposed to last very long (they laid us all off yesterday as a delayed Christmas present) so I did not want to hang around in this remote area waiting for a check to arrive in the mail so I elected direct deposit for my paycheck. This has worked in the past to effortlessly and paperlessly keep my digital wallet full of valueless American currency borrowed from future earnings of cyborg slaves. The agency told me it would take two weeks for direct deposit to begin and I was fine with that but they did not tell me that my checks would be sent in the meantime to the address I gave them which is simply an address I give out to pretend I have an address.
So, when everyone gets paid I did not expect to get a check or a direct deposit receipt. But I also did not expect to get a call from someone 3000 miles away saying they had my paper check. Fuck !@%&! Pinche Pendejos! The company did not think it was important to mention that my paper paycheck was going to be sent off regardless of my election of direct deposit? @&#*! Ok, so I jump into action and arrange to have photos of my check sent to me so I can then submit the photos to my bank for digital deposit. Already my blood is boiling because I suspected this trip into the tech rabbit hole would not be illustrated with fluffy bunnies. No, this would involve shit that I loathe.
Let me say here that I am not a technophobe. No, I've coded html e-commerce and hidden bullshit keyword jumbles within pages in order to increase google search engine hits for Search Engine Optimization and I know that links to a site increase search engine rankings and I can navigate SCADA remote radio transmission of natural gas pressure valves from ridiculously barren Texas wastelands where I would step over the bleached bones of a coyote to install radio repeaters and solar panels and program them to communicate with a headquarters hundreds of miles away via a chain of slave radios. This is mundane and I've concluded it's poisonous. I do not fear the technology at all and I understand it and I know it leads humanity on a trail to hell. I know this because I compare it to the lands I have visited where technology has not interfered and I'm telling you that A) Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are sadistic misanthropic lunatics who have destroyed humanity. B) Technology is a false promise and probably designed to enslave us all. C) Lands where technology is absent are healthier in every way except in the ways that technology is attempting to obliterate their society by gaining access. Make no mistake: I understand all the intricacies of computer languages and I have weighed their influence and concluded with no reservation that it's a poisonous attack on the soul of humanity. It is a viral disease that now seems impossible to cure.
My trials with this ponderous direct deposit were just beginning and now I'm going to get to the painful details of what I was trying to accomplish. Ok...I received the photos of the front and back of the check. But I needed to download an application in order to deposit it directly to my checking account. Fine. But I can not download this application to my laptop computer for some evil reason, like it's designed only for mobile smartphones. The application is purely for android gadgets, such as my Samsung Galaxy II smart phone. yes, it's an older Galaxy model because I do not see the need to get newer gadgets. Ok, I attempt to download this stupid mobile banking application and of course am given an error because I have insufficient memory on the smart phone. So, I delete some of my Debbie Reynolds photos and Debbie Reynolds fan tribute videos and learn that the memory compartment that held my Debbie Reynolds shrine is not the compartment that stores application system data. Man. Is there a way to rearrange the storage partitions? Yes, digital storage partitions and my money are now linked. I ask google but because there are something like 200,000 Samsung Galaxy gadgets and platforms I am faced with translating newer instructions into the age of my own gadget. It's impossible. Too may failed instructions so I give up and try to delete some applications. I try and try to delete these ridiculous applications, bloatware they are called because they are included with the gadget and serve no purpose except to pay some Czech code writer's cousin who was sexually involved with the manufacturer's wife. Just when I think I am going to make some progress, the library closes because I must do all of this in the library where I have power to the gadget and fast internet service. So the day ends in failure.
I am defeated and drive back to the Walmart parking lot and Jim drives over to me and he actually is partly blind and drives right over a curb and into the landscaping. I saw and cut 2x4 pallet wood that I salvaged from the job site because a cold front has arrived and Jim tells me about Egyptian pyramids being found in Utah and Egyptian hieroglyphs found at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
Jim says, "Did you know, Oggy, that dozens of disabled men have vanished from the face of the earth with no explanation?"
And Jim is disabled so he says this from his front seat, while smoking a cigarette, and watching me saw and chop lumber on the rocky Walmart landscape. "No, Jim. I didn't know that," I say with frosty breath.
Jim says, "I was so happy to see you drive up. I'm so lonely. My first wife left me for the milkman and I put my second wife through school and she sold our house and I never saw a penny of that. And the VA hospital gave me drugs that almost killed me and did you know that Nikolai Tesla invented a car that ran on hydrogen and the government killed him because he was going to make oil obsolete and they seized all his research...and man, it was good to see you coming home."
This word, Home used as a synonym for security and family and shelter, makes my skin crawl because Jim is invoking it in a freezing Walmart parking lot where we are parked illegally.
I'm sweating on my worn knees after 11 hours installing solar panels and chopping up wood, nodding and grinning and my ass cheeks are raw from my pants chaffing me all day long.
"Yeah, it's good to see you too, Jim. You sleep good in there? No windows or ventilation? You have a mattress?"
And Jim proceeds to tell me every detail of his living arrangements and where he bought his foam mattress..."....And, Oggy, for $4.98 at Target in Boulder, Colorado, they sell packing foam...or was it Walmart...and I get Elmer's Rubber Cement for $2.98...don't buy the big container because it will dry out if you don't use it often, buy the small container and glue the parts of the foam together and it will keep your hip bones off the plywood....and there is an Indian tribe in northern Sonora and I gave my last RV to a homeless veteran and he was part of that tribe and I forget the name and now archeologists are convinced humanity lived at the same time as dinosaurs because, Oggy, they found a three toed reptile dinosaur, a Theropod, I think, and there was a human footprint next to the dinosaur footprint and that proves the two lived at the same time." blowing his cigarette smoke into the wind, a Mozart opera blasting from his van radio.
I shake my head and keep chopping the wood and say politely, "Now, that's 200 million years ago, Jim, and I think, well, no, I'm pretty sure humanity is 2 million years old at most. And civilization in general is barely 12,000 years old. Well, maybe the Theropod simply lived around 12,000 years ago and was a rare survivor...
"Yeah, I'm saying," Jim Interrupts, "that historians have to rethink all their theories about slaves and how the Egyptian pyramids were build because they have found the same structure and architectural plans on every continent so it was probably aliens and I traveled with my second wife in a large RV and she was worried about suffocating so I bought two small fans that installed in the wheel wells and you can buy those at West Marine for $11.89 each..."
This goes on and on until I must start the fire (I have a wood stove in the van) and cook some canned soup and go to sleep at 10pm to wake up at 4am to drive to the job site and work for 11 hours installing solar panels until we get off and then I race to the library where I begin again trying to research this damnable banking application. This money is critical to my survival.
Ok, so I try and try to delete applications but none of the instructions work. These applications are permanently installed and all the procedurals do not succeed in deleting applications. There is simply no "Uninstall" option when I reach the screen that would ordinarily uninstall the application. Man, these useless voice and map applications...bloatware that can not be removed no matter what I try. I scour the internet for instructions on how to access the root folder of these applications but there is no option. I can not delete the applications so I start to delete important applications to free up the 20mb of storage space so this mobile banking application will fit. Finally, the application will install and at the very last second the library closes and between the time the library closes and when I must sleep I also have to go to a grocery store to wash my ass crack in the handicap bathroom and buy lunch (pre-cooked Sausages) for the next day because I have no refrigerator and even though it is cold outside the sun will heat the van up and spoil any milk of perishable food inside. So, I buy some pasta salad and a superfood salad and some bits of cheese and see if there are some discount bakery items and also buy some dried prunes and dates and peanuts.
I'm sweating on my worn knees after 11 hours installing solar panels and chopping up wood, nodding and grinning and my ass cheeks are raw from my pants chaffing me all day long.
"Yeah, it's good to see you too, Jim. You sleep good in there? No windows or ventilation? You have a mattress?"
And Jim proceeds to tell me every detail of his living arrangements and where he bought his foam mattress..."....And, Oggy, for $4.98 at Target in Boulder, Colorado, they sell packing foam...or was it Walmart...and I get Elmer's Rubber Cement for $2.98...don't buy the big container because it will dry out if you don't use it often, buy the small container and glue the parts of the foam together and it will keep your hip bones off the plywood....and there is an Indian tribe in northern Sonora and I gave my last RV to a homeless veteran and he was part of that tribe and I forget the name and now archeologists are convinced humanity lived at the same time as dinosaurs because, Oggy, they found a three toed reptile dinosaur, a Theropod, I think, and there was a human footprint next to the dinosaur footprint and that proves the two lived at the same time." blowing his cigarette smoke into the wind, a Mozart opera blasting from his van radio.
I shake my head and keep chopping the wood and say politely, "Now, that's 200 million years ago, Jim, and I think, well, no, I'm pretty sure humanity is 2 million years old at most. And civilization in general is barely 12,000 years old. Well, maybe the Theropod simply lived around 12,000 years ago and was a rare survivor...
"Yeah, I'm saying," Jim Interrupts, "that historians have to rethink all their theories about slaves and how the Egyptian pyramids were build because they have found the same structure and architectural plans on every continent so it was probably aliens and I traveled with my second wife in a large RV and she was worried about suffocating so I bought two small fans that installed in the wheel wells and you can buy those at West Marine for $11.89 each..."
This goes on and on until I must start the fire (I have a wood stove in the van) and cook some canned soup and go to sleep at 10pm to wake up at 4am to drive to the job site and work for 11 hours installing solar panels until we get off and then I race to the library where I begin again trying to research this damnable banking application. This money is critical to my survival.
Ok, so I try and try to delete applications but none of the instructions work. These applications are permanently installed and all the procedurals do not succeed in deleting applications. There is simply no "Uninstall" option when I reach the screen that would ordinarily uninstall the application. Man, these useless voice and map applications...bloatware that can not be removed no matter what I try. I scour the internet for instructions on how to access the root folder of these applications but there is no option. I can not delete the applications so I start to delete important applications to free up the 20mb of storage space so this mobile banking application will fit. Finally, the application will install and at the very last second the library closes and between the time the library closes and when I must sleep I also have to go to a grocery store to wash my ass crack in the handicap bathroom and buy lunch (pre-cooked Sausages) for the next day because I have no refrigerator and even though it is cold outside the sun will heat the van up and spoil any milk of perishable food inside. So, I buy some pasta salad and a superfood salad and some bits of cheese and see if there are some discount bakery items and also buy some dried prunes and dates and peanuts.
I then drive back to the Walmart parking lot and repeat the same scenario as the day before as I saw and chop plywood salvaged from the job site to mix in with my charcoal and keep me warm in the van Jim sits in the idling van next to me and says, "15 years I was in the public works department in San Diego and I would wake up at 3am after my wife left me for the milkman and walk down to the beach and pick up litter, garbage. People were like animals and you wouldn't believe the garbage I'd find. Used condoms. Condoms, Oggy! Used needles. Phones. Keys. Wallets. And then I'd turn it in to the lost and found of the surf shop nearby and then buy a taco at a food truck that sold excellent bean and cheese tacos for $1.75 and if you spent an extra quarter they would give you salsa verde or salsa roja and, Oggy, those tacos were so good and sometimes I would eat two and if I ate a third taco then I was too full, you know? Three tacos was too much but they were delicious and cost $1.75 and I was so happy and delighted to see you drive up. You're home again! I'd almost given up on you for the night and thought I had scared you away, you know lots of people call the police on me and say, 'There's a lunatic old pedophile living on my street.' and the police come out and search me. And I'm no pedophile, Oggy. That disgusts me."
I nod and saw and chop and wipe the sweat from my sunburned nose and chapped lips and I am not only frustrated that I failed to get my check into my account but the job is a real bitch and hurting my hands and every night I worry that this company has simply sent me a check that will bounce and I will not get paid but I can not cash the check because the idiots sent it 3000 miles away.
I nod and saw and chop and wipe the sweat from my sunburned nose and chapped lips and I am not only frustrated that I failed to get my check into my account but the job is a real bitch and hurting my hands and every night I worry that this company has simply sent me a check that will bounce and I will not get paid but I can not cash the check because the idiots sent it 3000 miles away.
I cough up some phlegm from my diseased lungs and say, "Yeah, Jim, I get the same fucking treatment from these shiny badge motherfuckers, putting their fucking paws all over me, fucking filthy fucking cocksucking cops and their shit fucking laws. I say fuck them!" I take the hatchet and point it violently in a vague direction. "I SAY FUCK THOSE COPS AND THEIR FILTHY PAWS PATTING ME DOWN AND ASKING ME QUESTIONS THAT ARE NONE OF THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS!" and I shout freely, my voice echoes off the vast beige walls of the store because we're alone in the Walmart parking lot and I'm frustrated for many reasons and it's freezing and I have to chop this goddamn wood to heat my van and...shit, I forgot to buy a box of cheap wine to dull the pain in my back.
Jim nods with little comprehension (he may be deaf too) and says, "Einstein was probably visited by aliens. Tesla too. They were visited by aliens and were instructed on universal laws...they were smart, but they were also tutored by aliens. And my daughter lives in Montana and I visited her but it was too cold. I sleep in my van and it is so cold that ice forms on the roof and the only thing I can do is run the engine and get warm again and the piss in my piss jug freezes so I have to chop it up into little pieces to pour it on the dirt and I had a service dog that I brought to the veterinarian in San Diego and they wanted to charge me $225 to euthanize it and also they wanted to inspect the dog and let someone else adopt it and I told them, no, the dog had been with me for 12 years and it was trained to do anything for me and she was a good dog and was sick with the cancer and I had to put it to sleep and they charged me $225 and I cried in the waiting room. Wow, Oggy, I was so happy to see you drive home. So good to talk. Did you see me blinking my lights with joy?"
Jim nods with little comprehension (he may be deaf too) and says, "Einstein was probably visited by aliens. Tesla too. They were visited by aliens and were instructed on universal laws...they were smart, but they were also tutored by aliens. And my daughter lives in Montana and I visited her but it was too cold. I sleep in my van and it is so cold that ice forms on the roof and the only thing I can do is run the engine and get warm again and the piss in my piss jug freezes so I have to chop it up into little pieces to pour it on the dirt and I had a service dog that I brought to the veterinarian in San Diego and they wanted to charge me $225 to euthanize it and also they wanted to inspect the dog and let someone else adopt it and I told them, no, the dog had been with me for 12 years and it was trained to do anything for me and she was a good dog and was sick with the cancer and I had to put it to sleep and they charged me $225 and I cried in the waiting room. Wow, Oggy, I was so happy to see you drive home. So good to talk. Did you see me blinking my lights with joy?"
I nod my head and continue to saw the wood for my fire. My hands ache. My throat is raw. I am broke.
So, next morning I go to work at 4am and work installing solar panels in the rain and then I race to the library and I think I have actually gotten everything together. I have the application on my Galaxy gadget. I have the photos on my computer. Great. So I open up the Galaxy and start the application and I am asked to take a photo of the front and back of the check. Well, I don't have the check. I have a photo that someone took of the check. Is there a way to just use the photo that was already taken of the check? Of course not. This proprietary piece of shit app requires I take a photo of the check at that moment using the photo platform of the application itself. Well, fuck! I try to take a photo of the photo on my computer screen and this fails totally because the light glare off the screen completely obliterates the image. I am running all over the library trying to find a place to take this photo of a photo that is legible and I fail. Fine. I will use the library computers and print out a copy of the photo and take a photo of the paper printout. I go to the librarian and get a computer station and sit down and attempt to access my email account and this is when the labyrinth really devours me.
I have a laptop computer that is already open with photo in the email attachment. And I have a Galaxy android gadget that is open with my email account because that is where the photo is and also the mobile banking application that is required to digitally deposit the check. And now I am attempting to access my email account through the library computer and the insanity storm that I unleashed surely caused shock waves across the tech world because I was now trying to open up my email account on a third computer simultaneously and Google decided that was beyond the realm of computer science. I was asked security questions about my mother's maiden name, when I was born, when the lord Jesus marched down from the cross, solve Pi to the 200th decimal place. It went on and on and finally the computer told me that a security code would be sent to my phone. Well, shit, I have a completely different slider phone that I use for personal calls and I turn off when in the library. I go find that phone and now have the Galaxy, the slider phone, the laptop and this desktop computer all surrounding me trying to assemble the magic password to access the photo so I can print it out and use the application to take a photo of the paper so I can get paid. Man, the frustration was really building. Well, I never get the text security code and I can't see the full number and don't even know if the phone number is current since I lost my old number. Motherfucker! That Steve Jobs is really a motherfucker! I thought. Or did I saw it out loud? Because people are now looking at me with real suspicion and loathing in their eyes.
So, next morning I go to work at 4am and work installing solar panels in the rain and then I race to the library and I think I have actually gotten everything together. I have the application on my Galaxy gadget. I have the photos on my computer. Great. So I open up the Galaxy and start the application and I am asked to take a photo of the front and back of the check. Well, I don't have the check. I have a photo that someone took of the check. Is there a way to just use the photo that was already taken of the check? Of course not. This proprietary piece of shit app requires I take a photo of the check at that moment using the photo platform of the application itself. Well, fuck! I try to take a photo of the photo on my computer screen and this fails totally because the light glare off the screen completely obliterates the image. I am running all over the library trying to find a place to take this photo of a photo that is legible and I fail. Fine. I will use the library computers and print out a copy of the photo and take a photo of the paper printout. I go to the librarian and get a computer station and sit down and attempt to access my email account and this is when the labyrinth really devours me.
I have a laptop computer that is already open with photo in the email attachment. And I have a Galaxy android gadget that is open with my email account because that is where the photo is and also the mobile banking application that is required to digitally deposit the check. And now I am attempting to access my email account through the library computer and the insanity storm that I unleashed surely caused shock waves across the tech world because I was now trying to open up my email account on a third computer simultaneously and Google decided that was beyond the realm of computer science. I was asked security questions about my mother's maiden name, when I was born, when the lord Jesus marched down from the cross, solve Pi to the 200th decimal place. It went on and on and finally the computer told me that a security code would be sent to my phone. Well, shit, I have a completely different slider phone that I use for personal calls and I turn off when in the library. I go find that phone and now have the Galaxy, the slider phone, the laptop and this desktop computer all surrounding me trying to assemble the magic password to access the photo so I can print it out and use the application to take a photo of the paper so I can get paid. Man, the frustration was really building. Well, I never get the text security code and I can't see the full number and don't even know if the phone number is current since I lost my old number. Motherfucker! That Steve Jobs is really a motherfucker! I thought. Or did I saw it out loud? Because people are now looking at me with real suspicion and loathing in their eyes.
Ok, I then receive a security email on my smart phone that says a suspicious attempt has been made to access my account and I swear at the computer screen, "YES THAT WAS ME TRYING TO ACCESS MY FUCKING ACCOUNT TO GET PAID YOU GODDAMN ASSHOLE! This I know I muttered out loud because everyone in the library shoots dirty looks in my direction and shushes me. The librarian gives me a look like I have one more outburst or I will be evicted. So, I have another option to have an email sent to a separate email account and I choose that option but again the security code is never sent to my email account. I can not open my account on the library computer. So, I sign out of both my other google accounts on the Samsung and the Dell and this was hard to do because they tried to automatically sign me in again so I had to shut both down and verify that I was signed out. Good, right? Well, then I go to sign in to my account on the library computer and get the same message that I must access my account on my Galaxy in order to get the security code. Well, if I open my Galaxy then I will sign in to google and that will cause this vicious cycle where it thinks two people are signing into the same account and one of the people is an identity thief. I try anyway and for five minutes wait for the security code and it never arrives and I again answer these security questions but none of them opens my account. Maybe at the last second I am juggling a fake email account that I created in order to outsmart google and a pop-up screen asks me: "Brief Survey: How would you rate your experience so far?" I click the 'Depressing and Evil" check box and the library closes as if on cue to defeat me, and I shake my head in dejected misery. I want to punch the screen. I want to take the guy in the wheelchair next to me and throw his deformed body through the Science Fiction section. But I calmly collect my gadgets and exit the library and go shoplifting for prunes and some pork chops and yogurt and drive back to the Walmart Parking lot and Jim flashes his lights happily and drives up next to me as I begin to chop wood.
"I was thinking about your comment about Guatemala and I should mention that my first wife was Brazilian and she left me for the milkman, the lechero, but she gave me my daughter whom I love even though she never calls me and I was going to ask you why you drove to Mexico."
And I tell him it was to explore different cultures, to study how other people live to look for a place that has lower cost of living, blah blah all while chopping and sawing salvage wood.
"Oggy, I was in the coast guard for 20 years and during the Vietnam war we would sit in the middle of the Pacific ocean and radio planes passing above us and tell them the weather conditions and the surface temperature of the water and it was also the point of no return and would be the spot where they would ditch the plane if there were mechanical problems because we could pick survivors up and I operated heavy machinery for 12 years for the public works and a German carpenter worked with me who was in the Nazi youth corp, Frank was his name and he was a great carpenter, and did you know that Einstein was kidnapped by aliens who explained the theory of relativity to him?"
I sigh and say, "I'd love to talk, Jim, but I've got this wood to chop and I'm so tired I can barely see straight and I have to cook these pork chops with the fire and..."
"Oh, of course, I'll go park back over here. you have a good night. "
And Jim was hurt by this and I hated myself for it and was doubly miserable because I thrive on meeting people and learning about their life, especially homeless, old, disabled people with no family because their stories and descriptions surpass all others for sad variety and here I had denied Jim his daily bit of conversation and he usually told me he was happy to see me but I had interrupted him before he could say it and he sadly drove ten feet away to where he parked and then watched me chop wood in the rain as the local rabbits hunted for leaves nearby.
"I was thinking about your comment about Guatemala and I should mention that my first wife was Brazilian and she left me for the milkman, the lechero, but she gave me my daughter whom I love even though she never calls me and I was going to ask you why you drove to Mexico."
And I tell him it was to explore different cultures, to study how other people live to look for a place that has lower cost of living, blah blah all while chopping and sawing salvage wood.
"Oggy, I was in the coast guard for 20 years and during the Vietnam war we would sit in the middle of the Pacific ocean and radio planes passing above us and tell them the weather conditions and the surface temperature of the water and it was also the point of no return and would be the spot where they would ditch the plane if there were mechanical problems because we could pick survivors up and I operated heavy machinery for 12 years for the public works and a German carpenter worked with me who was in the Nazi youth corp, Frank was his name and he was a great carpenter, and did you know that Einstein was kidnapped by aliens who explained the theory of relativity to him?"
I sigh and say, "I'd love to talk, Jim, but I've got this wood to chop and I'm so tired I can barely see straight and I have to cook these pork chops with the fire and..."
"Oh, of course, I'll go park back over here. you have a good night. "
And Jim was hurt by this and I hated myself for it and was doubly miserable because I thrive on meeting people and learning about their life, especially homeless, old, disabled people with no family because their stories and descriptions surpass all others for sad variety and here I had denied Jim his daily bit of conversation and he usually told me he was happy to see me but I had interrupted him before he could say it and he sadly drove ten feet away to where he parked and then watched me chop wood in the rain as the local rabbits hunted for leaves nearby.
What kind of monster am I to deny this lonely man his daily human contact? My neck hurt and my wrists were swollen and disabled. I cursed my life that I could not let Jim talk and was frustrated by this damn check cashing saga. And there are other ugly ghosts that haunt me daily but they are my private burden. So I sat glumly in the van and cooked my pork chops on the stove as the wood gets hotter than charcoal. I was going to eat one pork chop for dinner and eat one for breakfast but the first was so delicious with only salt that I quickly ate the second and then had nothing for breakfast but the yogurt and prunes. I fell into a feverish, nightmarish realm called sleep for a few hours and woke up to slam more glass solar panels into place.
Day three of the check saga was when all the demons Steve Jobs has created came to attack me. I returned to the library with fire in my eyes and my wrists creaking in pure agony after 11 hours installing solar panels in the rain. My lungs were filled with bile.
Day three of the check saga was when all the demons Steve Jobs has created came to attack me. I returned to the library with fire in my eyes and my wrists creaking in pure agony after 11 hours installing solar panels in the rain. My lungs were filled with bile.
I never signed into my account on any gadget and so I thought I could avoid the security problems but indeed this library computer was determined to make me prove I was myself and so I went through all the security questions about my favorite team and favorite book and first pet and first girlfriend's hair color and name of my birth city and first high school and first car and grandmother's name and on and on until finally I was sent a security code and accessed it through my Galaxy gadget and signed into the library computer and printed the check photo out.
Remember, this whole saga is simply me trying to print this check photo out so I can use the mobile banking app to take a photo of it so that I can get paid for the work I did two weeks ago because they sent a paper check 3000 miles away from me although I specifically requested direct deposit with no paper check because I have no address.
I finally printed the photos out. They are not perfect, but the numbers are legible, the details are there and it looks like a paper check. And I open up the ridiculous mobile banking application and sign in and elect the "Deposit Check" option and put in the details and take a photo of the check, but I can tell immediately that even though the printed check is legible, the photo taken by the app is horribly deformed and over-bright. The numbers are barely legible and there is no way to focus and no lighting conditions improve the image. COME ON! I do everything I can to take a photo of this check that is legible and when I think I have the very best image possible I take a front and back photo of the check and click 'Next' and the application signs me out and closes. WHAT THE HELL? I open the app again and sign in and return to digital banking and look at 'activity' and there is no indication that the image was stored or the deposit attempt was recorded. There has been no activity so I elect 'Deposit Check' again and enter the details, take a painstakingly impossible photo from this horrible application and as soon as I take the photo of the back of the check the application closes and I am right back to the splash screen where I must sign in. This insane loop continues enough times for me to conclude that the application is a glitch-ridden piece of useless crap and I write this review for the download page on Google Play: "Painful and ponderous tech fail. Code written by Pakistani slaves who probably have all my info sent to them every time I sign in. If my identity is stolen I suspect this App has so many torture chambers of horror coded into it that the Internet will explode if too many people use it. Epic, abysmal failure. If you can get this to work then you have my admiration and respect because it's like driving a car with no engine. Yes, you can push it down a hill and watch it roll into a lake, but is that really driving? I think not. This app should be marched ceremoniously to the crater of an active volcano and thrown in along with the executives who thought it was useful. The only time I needed it and it failed me so spectacularly, just going in a hopeless loop trying to capture a check photo back to the sign in page, back to the capture photo, back to the sign in, back to the photo, back to the sign in. No mortal could ever capture a legible photo of a check with this demonic photo platform. Cave men could carve a more legible image on rock. Surely, they will charge me fifty cents every time it fails. Of course? How else can they afford to feed the blind coders to type this sadistic assault on humanity?"
So, I am right back where I started. The photo of the check can not be used in any way to deposit the check with this application. Even if I had the original paper check in my hand there would be no way to deposit it because the application does not work. At least I could mail the check to my bank along with a deposit slip if I had the original but I do not and having the check mailed to me simply forces me to wait for it to arrive and then wait for the General Delivery hours at the post office.
You might ask, Oggy, why not go to the company office and get another check? Ha! I laugh at your innocence. I've already covered this topic and how everything that can be outsourced to a Pakistani call center has been. There is no 'office'. There is no 'associate'. The check may as well have been sent from Neptune. I have never met anyone associated with this company nor do I know where their headquarters is or if it is staffed by humans. The people I talked to are probably in Pakistan. Everything is automated from the piss test to the printed check and there is no recourse if something goes wrong. This is why I need to cash the check to confirm it will not bounce. Otherwise I'm working another week for another fake check.
I ask you if this is an improvement? Yes, if this had all worked effortlessly then maybe I could argue that getting paid for one's work is now less complicated because even with the check being mailed to the wrong address I was still able to digitally deposit it, but do you not see the insanity and hoops I jumped through to attempt to deposit this check? I had to research the nature of gadget data storage partitions and then navigate hundreds of obsolete tutorials to make space for a useless app and then navigate the insane security maze Google designed and still the App failed to accomplish a simple task and the check remains uncashed and I remain unpaid eating stolen prunes. What has hell unleashed?
I've had experiences like this before, where in order to accomplish one task I must enter a labyrinth of tech tutorials. I have an old MP3 player that may be the topic of a future tech essay on how to attempt to use an obsolete device for which there is no software interface. I once tried to research this device and it was comic exploration of futility, like trying to climb a mountain that once existed in the Triassic period but has eroded into dust and then been submerged by the Atlantic ocean. One must reassemble the mountain, compact it, and then climb it.
The dullards among you will say, "But Oggy, our lives are improved because of these technological devices and applications." You are idiots if you believe this. Your lives are not improved, they are hurt. Sociopaths like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have no love for humanity. They loathe humanity. They have devised platforms to punish and control humanity. Do not be deceived. All the technology in the world does not 'save time'. No, modern tech slaves work more today than pre-technological slaves. They simply accomplish more. If you think accomplishing more means you saved time then you have fallen for the greatest hoax known to man because it means your entire creation philosophy has designated you as a 'producer/consumer' and I tell you this is a devilish, commercialized lie. Technology aids this lie and you are being trained as surely as an owner trains a dog to shit outside, trained to obey gadgets that are designed and manufactured by loathsome demons from the depths of hell. Bill Gates is not your friend, you do not know him, yet he controls your life and makes you think higher production equals higher value. Gates is a cyborg and his wish is to see humanity become the slaves of cyborgs and if you obey your gadget then he has won. Production accomplished in 8 hours is still accomplished in 8 hours. If this production would have been accomplished in 16 hours back in 1916 then that does not mean one person would have accomplished it in 16 hours. It simply means a person in 1916 would have taken two days to accomplish it. Which means he also worked 8 hours one day. See? You each work 8 hours in one day. You accomplished twice as much, but you invested THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF TIME for one day. You did not save time.
I was in an old Anheuser-Busch warehouse in Saint Louis searching for food one night and I stumbled on an ancient pallet jack. This belonged in a museum. Instead of the modern version which is basically a small hydraulic jack attached to some arms...
...the one I found in Saint Louis in that dusty warehouse was this medieval contraption that was a a cross between a hand pedaled bicycle and a water well pulley connected to two similar arms on wheels. There were no hydraulics used. It used a pulley system. I can not even find a photo of such a device because it is so obsolete and useless to modern humanity. I can only describe it as two metal arms attached to a scaffold on which this pedal crank with handholds was attached. The operator would position the arms inside the wooden pallet and then 'pedal' the winch with his hands and this would wind up hemp rope that would lift the arms and the pallet off the ground and then the operator would lock the winch and move the jack around on wheels. I thought, my god, the person operating that jack would take forever to do anything. Then I reflected: No, Oggy. That operator would work exactly the same number of hours as a modern operator of a motor driven pallet jack, but he would accomplish less. This really got me thinking about the nature of modern gadgets and vehicles and tools and I concluded that modern humanity saves absolutely no time using these modern tools. None. No time is saved. That is a total myth. What happens is people do more in the same amount of time. And, truthfully, if you are so cursed as to live in modern times, then you probably work more hours to accomplish more because the demands and multi-tasking insanity of modern times require all of us to be computer research experts as well as pallet jack operators. So the pallet jack operator in 1916 who hand cranked that pallet jack for 8 hours indeed moved fewer pallets...BUT HE DID NOT HAVE TO WASTE A SINGLE SECOND DEALING WITH MODERN GADGETS. So, the myth that Bill Gates gave us tools to 'save time' is exactly the kind of demonic myth that makes devils laugh with glee when stupid humans buy into them. No one saves time and you are expected and required to know far more than someone who lives a life free from technology, which means a tech free life will definitely give you more time that is yours to dispose of rather than to enslave yourself with navigating technological labyrinths and obsolete apps and storage space. Whether you accomplish more or less than a 1916 pallet jack operator is totally irrelevant to how much time you personally have to enjoy your life and enrich your personality. You probably spend the exact same time working as the pallet jack operator did with his mechanical pallet jack. You both spend the same amount of time.
There is an argument that when technology works perfectly then it is helpful and I would simply point to Coronado's expedition in 1540 through North America for two years without the help of maps since it was uncharted territory, with Indian guides, no GPS, no idea how big the continent was or where the nearest laundromat was...and the man and his small army of Conquistadors traveled in a large loop and returned to the exact spot he started in New Galacia. Fast forward to modern times and Oggy spent two years wandering Central America in his van named El Conquistador with the aid of all the modern wonders of the world. And it took the exact same time. So, what the hell is the difference? I spent two years wandering charted land. Coronado spent two years wandering uncharted land. Exactly how did I 'save' any time compared to Coronado? We both spent two years of our lives on these respective journeys 500 years apart. Two years. I did not 'accomplish more' thanks to my gadgets. I did not 'see the same things in less time.' No. I saw exactly what I saw and experienced exactly what I experienced. I had two years worth of experience. Coronado also had two years of experience. My modern gadgets did not give me 4 years of experience in the span of two years. No. Coronado did not experience only 6 months of experience in his 2 years. I did not accomplish my two year journey in 6 months. No. It took two years and no less and Coronado took two years to spend two years traveling. It did not take him 4 years simply because he lacked modern gadgets.
My conclusion is that even when tech gadgets work perfectly they are still operated under the delusion of 'saving time' which is a demonic myth invented by tech psychopaths like Bill Gates. But, they never work perfectly. And furthermore, they all become obsolete because tech psychopaths make them obsolete and your time will be devoured by the navigation, not of uncharted wilderness, but of new useless, pointless, evil, tech tutorials that accomplish exactly the opposite of what they promise: You lose time. You do not save time. At best, you lose time and at worst you lose lots and lots of time and become incredibly frustrated AND you fail to accomplish anything. I ask you that if you spent 3 or 4 days and fail to accomplish something that was solved in seconds at a payroll desk in 1912 then where in Bill Gates's demonic utopia does one go to request that time be returned? Because those days you spent navigating this tech hell are gone. That time was wasted on this simple task. And even if it was accomplished I stress that it is a myth that time is saved . Furthermore, this does not begin to explore the spiritual realm of tech saturated societies which I unhesitatingly conclude is poisoned to the core due to tech saturation.
In summary: Technology is invented by misanthropic, sociopathic cyborgs and loathsome demons. It devours irreplaceable time navigating the fantasy labyrinth designed by these devils. It does not save time but gives the appearance that you accomplished more so you think you saved time. You did not save time, you simply are deluded by perspective and a decision to value your life by production quotas. You are a pathetic pallet jack slave for 8 hours regardless of how many pallet jacks you move. Only the hours of your life matter, not production. Spiritually, societies are corrupted and ultimately poisoned by technology and the fantasy believe that they save time. You are being trained to obey gadgets designed by misanthropic devils and your time is being devoured without your consent and you are a slave to gadgets. Often, you fail to accomplish anything the gadgets promised and lost that time forever. Experience only counts when you are self-aware and self-determining. When you are trained to obey the fantasy utopian ideal invented by tech devils then you are using your time to gain experience that does not enrich your life at all but rather fulfills their demonic vision of a hellish world of spiritually depleted people feeding on each-other's pathetic pallet jack dreams.
I also have concluded that the demon Bill Gates will eventually conquer humanity and deform it into a cyborg slave hell shortly before a nuclear holocaust or atmospheric collapse. People are not strong enough to break free of repeated conditioning propaganda and society now relies on the technology destroying it. They are already slaves and they will die slaves.
Remember, this whole saga is simply me trying to print this check photo out so I can use the mobile banking app to take a photo of it so that I can get paid for the work I did two weeks ago because they sent a paper check 3000 miles away from me although I specifically requested direct deposit with no paper check because I have no address.
I finally printed the photos out. They are not perfect, but the numbers are legible, the details are there and it looks like a paper check. And I open up the ridiculous mobile banking application and sign in and elect the "Deposit Check" option and put in the details and take a photo of the check, but I can tell immediately that even though the printed check is legible, the photo taken by the app is horribly deformed and over-bright. The numbers are barely legible and there is no way to focus and no lighting conditions improve the image. COME ON! I do everything I can to take a photo of this check that is legible and when I think I have the very best image possible I take a front and back photo of the check and click 'Next' and the application signs me out and closes. WHAT THE HELL? I open the app again and sign in and return to digital banking and look at 'activity' and there is no indication that the image was stored or the deposit attempt was recorded. There has been no activity so I elect 'Deposit Check' again and enter the details, take a painstakingly impossible photo from this horrible application and as soon as I take the photo of the back of the check the application closes and I am right back to the splash screen where I must sign in. This insane loop continues enough times for me to conclude that the application is a glitch-ridden piece of useless crap and I write this review for the download page on Google Play: "Painful and ponderous tech fail. Code written by Pakistani slaves who probably have all my info sent to them every time I sign in. If my identity is stolen I suspect this App has so many torture chambers of horror coded into it that the Internet will explode if too many people use it. Epic, abysmal failure. If you can get this to work then you have my admiration and respect because it's like driving a car with no engine. Yes, you can push it down a hill and watch it roll into a lake, but is that really driving? I think not. This app should be marched ceremoniously to the crater of an active volcano and thrown in along with the executives who thought it was useful. The only time I needed it and it failed me so spectacularly, just going in a hopeless loop trying to capture a check photo back to the sign in page, back to the capture photo, back to the sign in, back to the photo, back to the sign in. No mortal could ever capture a legible photo of a check with this demonic photo platform. Cave men could carve a more legible image on rock. Surely, they will charge me fifty cents every time it fails. Of course? How else can they afford to feed the blind coders to type this sadistic assault on humanity?"
So, I am right back where I started. The photo of the check can not be used in any way to deposit the check with this application. Even if I had the original paper check in my hand there would be no way to deposit it because the application does not work. At least I could mail the check to my bank along with a deposit slip if I had the original but I do not and having the check mailed to me simply forces me to wait for it to arrive and then wait for the General Delivery hours at the post office.
You might ask, Oggy, why not go to the company office and get another check? Ha! I laugh at your innocence. I've already covered this topic and how everything that can be outsourced to a Pakistani call center has been. There is no 'office'. There is no 'associate'. The check may as well have been sent from Neptune. I have never met anyone associated with this company nor do I know where their headquarters is or if it is staffed by humans. The people I talked to are probably in Pakistan. Everything is automated from the piss test to the printed check and there is no recourse if something goes wrong. This is why I need to cash the check to confirm it will not bounce. Otherwise I'm working another week for another fake check.
I ask you if this is an improvement? Yes, if this had all worked effortlessly then maybe I could argue that getting paid for one's work is now less complicated because even with the check being mailed to the wrong address I was still able to digitally deposit it, but do you not see the insanity and hoops I jumped through to attempt to deposit this check? I had to research the nature of gadget data storage partitions and then navigate hundreds of obsolete tutorials to make space for a useless app and then navigate the insane security maze Google designed and still the App failed to accomplish a simple task and the check remains uncashed and I remain unpaid eating stolen prunes. What has hell unleashed?
I've had experiences like this before, where in order to accomplish one task I must enter a labyrinth of tech tutorials. I have an old MP3 player that may be the topic of a future tech essay on how to attempt to use an obsolete device for which there is no software interface. I once tried to research this device and it was comic exploration of futility, like trying to climb a mountain that once existed in the Triassic period but has eroded into dust and then been submerged by the Atlantic ocean. One must reassemble the mountain, compact it, and then climb it.
The dullards among you will say, "But Oggy, our lives are improved because of these technological devices and applications." You are idiots if you believe this. Your lives are not improved, they are hurt. Sociopaths like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have no love for humanity. They loathe humanity. They have devised platforms to punish and control humanity. Do not be deceived. All the technology in the world does not 'save time'. No, modern tech slaves work more today than pre-technological slaves. They simply accomplish more. If you think accomplishing more means you saved time then you have fallen for the greatest hoax known to man because it means your entire creation philosophy has designated you as a 'producer/consumer' and I tell you this is a devilish, commercialized lie. Technology aids this lie and you are being trained as surely as an owner trains a dog to shit outside, trained to obey gadgets that are designed and manufactured by loathsome demons from the depths of hell. Bill Gates is not your friend, you do not know him, yet he controls your life and makes you think higher production equals higher value. Gates is a cyborg and his wish is to see humanity become the slaves of cyborgs and if you obey your gadget then he has won. Production accomplished in 8 hours is still accomplished in 8 hours. If this production would have been accomplished in 16 hours back in 1916 then that does not mean one person would have accomplished it in 16 hours. It simply means a person in 1916 would have taken two days to accomplish it. Which means he also worked 8 hours one day. See? You each work 8 hours in one day. You accomplished twice as much, but you invested THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF TIME for one day. You did not save time.
I was in an old Anheuser-Busch warehouse in Saint Louis searching for food one night and I stumbled on an ancient pallet jack. This belonged in a museum. Instead of the modern version which is basically a small hydraulic jack attached to some arms...
modern pallet jack |
There is an argument that when technology works perfectly then it is helpful and I would simply point to Coronado's expedition in 1540 through North America for two years without the help of maps since it was uncharted territory, with Indian guides, no GPS, no idea how big the continent was or where the nearest laundromat was...and the man and his small army of Conquistadors traveled in a large loop and returned to the exact spot he started in New Galacia. Fast forward to modern times and Oggy spent two years wandering Central America in his van named El Conquistador with the aid of all the modern wonders of the world. And it took the exact same time. So, what the hell is the difference? I spent two years wandering charted land. Coronado spent two years wandering uncharted land. Exactly how did I 'save' any time compared to Coronado? We both spent two years of our lives on these respective journeys 500 years apart. Two years. I did not 'accomplish more' thanks to my gadgets. I did not 'see the same things in less time.' No. I saw exactly what I saw and experienced exactly what I experienced. I had two years worth of experience. Coronado also had two years of experience. My modern gadgets did not give me 4 years of experience in the span of two years. No. Coronado did not experience only 6 months of experience in his 2 years. I did not accomplish my two year journey in 6 months. No. It took two years and no less and Coronado took two years to spend two years traveling. It did not take him 4 years simply because he lacked modern gadgets.
My conclusion is that even when tech gadgets work perfectly they are still operated under the delusion of 'saving time' which is a demonic myth invented by tech psychopaths like Bill Gates. But, they never work perfectly. And furthermore, they all become obsolete because tech psychopaths make them obsolete and your time will be devoured by the navigation, not of uncharted wilderness, but of new useless, pointless, evil, tech tutorials that accomplish exactly the opposite of what they promise: You lose time. You do not save time. At best, you lose time and at worst you lose lots and lots of time and become incredibly frustrated AND you fail to accomplish anything. I ask you that if you spent 3 or 4 days and fail to accomplish something that was solved in seconds at a payroll desk in 1912 then where in Bill Gates's demonic utopia does one go to request that time be returned? Because those days you spent navigating this tech hell are gone. That time was wasted on this simple task. And even if it was accomplished I stress that it is a myth that time is saved . Furthermore, this does not begin to explore the spiritual realm of tech saturated societies which I unhesitatingly conclude is poisoned to the core due to tech saturation.
In summary: Technology is invented by misanthropic, sociopathic cyborgs and loathsome demons. It devours irreplaceable time navigating the fantasy labyrinth designed by these devils. It does not save time but gives the appearance that you accomplished more so you think you saved time. You did not save time, you simply are deluded by perspective and a decision to value your life by production quotas. You are a pathetic pallet jack slave for 8 hours regardless of how many pallet jacks you move. Only the hours of your life matter, not production. Spiritually, societies are corrupted and ultimately poisoned by technology and the fantasy believe that they save time. You are being trained to obey gadgets designed by misanthropic devils and your time is being devoured without your consent and you are a slave to gadgets. Often, you fail to accomplish anything the gadgets promised and lost that time forever. Experience only counts when you are self-aware and self-determining. When you are trained to obey the fantasy utopian ideal invented by tech devils then you are using your time to gain experience that does not enrich your life at all but rather fulfills their demonic vision of a hellish world of spiritually depleted people feeding on each-other's pathetic pallet jack dreams.
I also have concluded that the demon Bill Gates will eventually conquer humanity and deform it into a cyborg slave hell shortly before a nuclear holocaust or atmospheric collapse. People are not strong enough to break free of repeated conditioning propaganda and society now relies on the technology destroying it. They are already slaves and they will die slaves.
This morning I took Jim to a doughnut shop where there were no gadgets. Even the clock was analog. The bakers were from Thailand and made the greatest, lightest, fluffiest Vanilla Angel Cream powdered sugar doughnut on earth. Their shop was probably 40 years old and the formica countertop had the scars of the pre-tech mechanics and infantry who ate donuts there and drank their coffee. I saw Jim walk for the first time and understood why he
never got out of his van because he is crippled by a broken back and
uses a cane and his muscles have atrophied so he can barely move.
Again, over steaming cups of coffee, Jim told me that Tesla had been kidnapped by aliens and told the secrets of the universe and how his wife left him for El Lechero. Jim told me that he was in the public works dept. for 12 years and had a job painting plywood so it looked like maple. I asked him to tell me about Bigfoot and he talked about Bigfoot and aliens and prehistoric technology for an hour and he said, "Oggy, it's so good to talk to someone. I've been lonely in the van and I can't figure out how to use my cell phone to call my daughter and she wouldn't talk to me anyway because when my wife left me for the milkman she told our daughter horrible lies about me and now she thinks I'm some kind of insane animal and did you know that Einstein was probably an alien who was dropped off here in human form to help humanity and the government had him assassinated...Yaqui! The name of the tribe in Mexico that the homeless vet I gave my RV to was Yaqui! I knew it would come back to me!"
For a brief moment, as the steam from our coffee mugs surrounded us, Jim looked 40 years old. His eyes cleared and his posture straightened. I could see the young sailor he once was with his life in front of him. I nodded and repeated "Yaqui" as I nibbled on the delicious angle cream donut the master Vietnamese donut makers had baked for us. Winter Arizona rain fell on the cold desert streets outside and a fog formed on the windows so the month-old Christmas lights shone double and slightly tired and common. Jim began to rant about Alien energy sources. Other customers cleared away from the seats around us but I nodded and smiled and ate my doughnut and listened, really listened, to Jim as we two homeless residents of the Walmart parking lot sat before our coffee at the blessed communal counter.