I'm a cat bed!

Getting a new Trek show to watch? Awesome! Getting new Dadmiral entries from Ben and Adam in @greatesttrek.com episodes? Super-duper awesome!

Hell yeah

I hope getting bonked on the head 3 times by an owl while out on a walk at 5:30 AM portends good luck or some positive event in the bonkee's life. Have walked that same residential road almost every day at approx same time since June 2022, & today was the first time encountering an owl. So weird.

Buffy and I thank you very much, @steveokino.bsky.social, for making possible an order from Feline GrubHub! (The other cats are too busy sleeping away a cold, windy day to pose for photos, but they're grateful too!)

Well, the felines are officially fucked as my unemployment continues. The price of a can of Friskies went from 78 cents to 84 cents, and Floof's Fancy Feast went from 88 cents to 96 cents. Fuck all this bullshit.

Tornado possibility on 8 January. Neat. This year is just fabulous in every shitty way.

Watching "Emissary" for the umpeenth time since watching it waaay back on this date in 1993. Or at least I'm going to try to watch it. The feline overlords might have other plans for my time.

Listening to the Golden State Warriors play at noon Central time is making today seem even more...off. Are the holidays over yet? I need normal time to return.

Temp has dropped about 20°, and wind's now howling WNW. Buffy decided to come in and assist me with a psoas release because my left hip is cranky. Thanks, bub, but your extra weight is no good if I've again torn the labrum in that hip.

Boxing Day wishes to all who celebrate from Ralph, King of Boxes

Ahh man, listen to me sounding like I know what I'm doing as a tech writer/knowledge base admin AND as a yoga instructor! I've felt so incompetent lately as I get rejection email after rejection email from prospective employers. Listening to this outtake was a nice reminder I'm not incompetent.

My holiday gift to me: a badly needed haircut. Stylist asks if I'm ready for Christmas. "Sure, I guess." Stylist then asks if I have last-minute gift shopping to do afterward. That's when I admit that no, I've been unemployed since end of Sept, so no gifts could I afford to buy. Fun conversation!

Happy Solstice! Here's to more sunlight in the weeks and months to come!

The number of tech writer job postings for the military industrial complex is too damn high, and the number of those openings that require an existing secret-level clearance is disturbing.

Well hell, guess I'm not going for my 7-mile morning walk today. I just don't have enough layers for single-digit wind chill. Boo :(

Took time today to sort through a big-ass box of memento-y items from a decade-long relationship. Still can't bring myself to chuck some things, but the big-ass box is now a shoebox, so...progress?

The cat from next door is once again at my patio door begging for food and probably some assistance putting an end to his indignity.

This floofy bastard....

So Spotify tells me I'm old as fuck, a Trekkie, an NPR nerd, & like jazz? Tell me something I don't know! To be fair to @greatesttrek.com, TGG would be #1 again if I hadn't switched to consuming it using Podcast Addict. And boy howdy have I consumed a LOT of that pod these past few months!

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is a nice way to spend 17 minutes and 4 seconds when you need to not think for a little while.

My dad cut & assembled these wooden snowflakes. I told him with a few pattern mods, he could wreaths of d'k tahgs. "Are your holiday decorations without honor because you are a worthless petaQ? Bring glory to you and your house with a festive d'k tahg wreath!" I don't think I sold him on it.

Being unemployed sucks, but to be expected to fork over a $20 processing fee to make your monthly COBRA coverage online--a fee not disclosed in any letters I've received--is fucking extortion. Fuck you, WEX Health.

If you've never called and listened to the message, do it. Sometimes we all need to feel not so alone and foundering, and that can happen often these days.

I don't know which is more stupidly frustrating: applying for a job and clearing all the hurdles, or successfully acquiring health insurance and clearing all the hurdles.

@raygunsite.com is bringing back the Shameless Commerce Division of Car Talk?!? I love this so much!

Yeah, should have rented that bounce house for today instead of gone through the rigamarole of securing health coverage for next month and 2026. Going outside to scream 'BOOOUUUNNNCCE HOOUUUUSSSEEE!" even if I'm just jumping up and down on my front porch.

What's more delightful on an unusually warm November Saturday than a couple of tykes (maybe 4 years old) bopping around in an inflatable bounce house hollering "BOUNCE HOUSE!" Maybe I should rent a bounce house for my birthday. Definitely what my hypermobile SI joint needs.

Momentary happiness is FINALLY finding that brand-new box of contact lenses* so that you can cancel that eye appointment you've had to reschedule 3 times because of COBRA admin fuckery *Sure, the prescription is from 2018 and the lenses expired in 2/2024, but this box gets me through another year!

When science is understandable, we all win. I've started a national petition calling on all institutions of higher education, and their accreditors, to require science communication and public engagement training for all STEM degrees. Share and sign today, it only takes a few seconds: bit.ly/3LbnfHB

Happy first day of ##GarWeek to all who celebrate!

Happy #GarWeek Eve to all who celebrafe!

First trick-or-treaters!

Happy Halloween from the golden 70s! (Bet ya can't guess which one of these two candy-seekers is me because, yeah, pretty obvious.)

Just had a final interview for a tech writing gig. Boy oh boy have the many years of working from home and not having many social interactions really damaged my "people" skills. Oof.

Autumn evidently has arrived for real as we're having our first three-cat couch day, and there's been no sunshine since Thursday.

Cool, rainy, windy morning, so I get a job-hunting buddy (until I get up to refill my water bottle, at which time Buffy takes of the seat entirely and thus forces me to move the laptop elsewhere)

Current view of my front porch. None of these cats live here.

Checkerboard lap

Having a Sunday morning sit on my front porch with some felines. Neither of the two black cats lives here. Ralph, looking on from inside the house, is not happy.

Peeping tom looking for leftovers

Reminder from CharliXCX that #GarWeek is coming November 3-7 @garlab.bsky.social!!!

Dude, really? I can't continue to feed you if I don't get another job, but I can't work toward finding another job when you keep stealing my chair.

My resumé-revamping assistant is working really hard today....

Had to get out the ol 2013 Alienware laptop this morning. Haven't used it since 2022, booted up on first try. Now to recover my personal Windows credentials because fuck me if I remember them after 5 years of not using them....

And now i'm unemployed. Fucking hell, I want to die

One day I sure would like to have a job where I'm not on edge on the 15th and the final day of the month as I wait to learn if I've been RIFfed and who else might have been RIFfed. Off to puke my guts up....

Not sure which is more annoying, the neighbor's power washer or his leaf blower. Dude, it's been 4 hours. Go watch some football or some shit. I'd like to open my windows while I work.

Well, the whole rapture thing's been a disappointment, butI got an awesome t-shirt in the mail today! Thanks, @reforest-kelley.bsky.social, for making this super awesome bit of happiness!

99 little bugs in UAT 99 little bugs Take one down, patch it around 117 little bugs going to prod