Being in school was wild when that happened. My school banned baggy pants over night and required us to carry clear backpacks. We weren’t allowed to carry more than the book we needed for the next class, and cameras went up.

I was overheard telling a friend (jokingly) that I was going to kill myself if I had to take another timed test. Police showed up soon after and handcuffed me. Some girl overheard me and swore I said I was going to kill other people. Luckily one of the officers was from my neighborhood and believed me, but I was still suspended and he drove me home.

You know what really sucks though? All these years later and people are still terrified. Last week I woke up a few minutes after my teenage daughter got on the bus, my wife said, “Maybe you should go get her. Someone has threatened to shoot up the school.” I drove over and got her, fortunately the officer guarding the door just let her leave with me and was understanding. A day later and another threat hits. Someone says they’re going to shoot up the pep rally. I didn’t send her to school. Two unexcused absences in one week at the beginning of the school year over that shit.

She did online school last year and it was a nightmare, but I’m all over the place on that right now. I want her to be able to make friends and things. It wasn’t healthy for her last year. I only did that because her mom had recently died and I wanted to give her a break from everything.

I guess some kids thought it would be funny to do that last week. I just wish no one had to take them seriously.

Oh no, the only computer that is working right now is the one that keeps us alive.

Our heart rates increased because we were terrified for like, 7 minutes. Ok, 2 minutes, I’m sorry! Fine! 30 seconds. We’ve been stuck up here for so long. It isn’t my fault. You can secretly get yours, mines leaves evidence!

The whole “small town on the edge of dying” bit. Holy shit have I experienced that firsthand.

See, what happened with a lot of these towns is that their industry became a part of their pride and culture. Where I’m from it’s coal. Trucks everywhere have a decal of a coal miner with one of two phrases. “Coal keeps the lights on.” and “6 inches from hell.”

My grandfather was a coal miner, so was his father, and his father, on both sides of my family. My father realized that the industry was dying so he left (and left us here haha). My brother did it for awhile but left it behind because of the drug problems in the mines. There was a whole underground urine market that kept things moving.

Even the poor fools who never worked in the mines go on and on about coal like it’s some kind of idol.

I would imagine the same thing happens in other places. The people fear big changes until their fear backs them into irrelevance. I’m getting older, so I can relate to that, only I vote for my kids, not to make me feel less afraid. Whatever world they grow up in won’t be one that I’d be perfectly comfortable in. It has always been that way as far back as we have been recording history. No sense in fighting where the world is going just because I don’t understand it or relate to it.

Moscows are fat. Trump is fat. Coincidence? Probably not.

Red Bull is also twice as expensive. You get used to the jitters eventually. :p

In my town at least, we’ve got it right, that is if we could get more funding and help everyone.

The system that I went through has tiers, and it’s mostly drug addicts, but man I’ve seen it turn people around completely.

If a person ends up arrested because they’re tweaking, paperwork is immediately filed to get them into a specialized local hospital. It’s very small, but the people involved really do work hard to get things moving.

Once the person is in the hospital, they keep them until withdrawal ends or psychosis subsides. Then they enroll them in a very strenuous program that pretty much takes up their entire life for a bit. They try to get the person on Medicaid, but if they don’t qualify the hospital actually has a fund to pay for their treatment. They are provided with a ride to drug classes and group therapy multiple times a week and drug tested daily. If they fail a drug test they take them back to the hospital, unless they’ve been charged criminally, then it’s back to jail first, but ultimately they’ll end up back in the hospital.

Assigned case managers will visit them at their home at random daily. If the person doesn’t have a home, we have several “sobriety houses” in the area where folks are sent until they can get on their own feet.

Their case worker files applications for low income apartments and other programs like HUD. The person will ultimately end up in a home if they work the program.

In my time with the program I seen way more success than failure. The only failures I seen were those people who just made criminality their entire life. I’m talking drug dealing, robbing, constantly fighting. There are some people you just can’t help. I might be wrong there, but I seen a personality type that didn’t seem like it could be helped anyway. It was those folks who found their source of pride in a criminal lifestyle.

I probably do have some bias on the success of the program because they stick you with people who have progress similar to yours. If you’re a success in the program, you’re generally going to have appointments scheduled alongside people who are doing at least roughly as good as you are.

When I left the main program in 2020, I always had my appointments with the same people. We were the “no failed drug tests in years” group. Several of those people were homeless but they aren’t now.

At my store (which I worked at for 23 years and miss dearly), I would always let my regulars come in after closing if I could still serve them. If they had cash, I’d ring it up the next day.

That was one of 7 stores I worked in over the years (same company).

The other 6, hell no. Once they realized that I’d open the door after closing those bastards were coming up to an hour after I locked the doors. Same jerks every time yelling and cussing at me, “Well yer still here yuh faygit I don’t see why you won’t let me git a beer!”. Sometimes I’d stay late and hide in the office to watch a little tv before going home. It was always the same jackasses beating on the door at 1 AM putting their hands and faces up to the glass with stupid looks on their faces. I stopped letting them in after it became a problem for me and no matter how many times I said no, they’d walk their drunk asses to that store to try me.

It is amazing how much culture can change over 40 miles of road. I mean it, it’s crazy. Even the meth heads were polite and reasonable when they were in the middle of a 3 week, no sleep, hallucination fueled nightmare. “Ah, man. I’m so sorry that I bothered you. There’s people following me across the road so I’m just gonna borrow a little of your light here until someone I know comes to get me. I hope you have a good night.”

In that one store every local was always polite. I had two memorable assholes there over 23 years. At the others I had so many I couldn’t tell you.

A very good friend of mine had one of these when I was a kid. We called it laserdisc. I couldn’t tell you how that started.

So, when I got to high school and they were using actual laserdiscs I said, “Where’s the cool outer shell? Is this just like, a school laserdisc setup?” Some kids argued with me that I didn’t know what I was talking about.

I clearly remembered watching Star Wars on them and being mesmerized by that case.

Years later I got to thinking about it and googled “laserdisc with hard casing, mechanism removes disc when played”. Nothing. I chalked it up to it being some kind of false memory. Maybe I was just remembering the sleeve and my buddy was putting the movies in the player in a way that made me think it worked like that.

It wasn’t until years later that I seen a techmoan video in my feed and I was like, “THAT!! That’s what I’ve been talking about all these years!! It’s fucking vinyl! NO WAY!”

I was always tech obsessed so it nearly drove me crazy anytime I thought about it. He’d been dead for years so I couldn’t ask him. His dad and sister had no idea what I was talking about. “He traded a lot stuff around so there’s no telling what he had. There was mismatched technology all over this place.”

Did I ever tell you about nuclear?

If I could get back all the years of my life spent walking boomers through tech problems for free…

Hey, I got thanked and told I was worth a million bucks to the boss one time though. If I had a tail I might have wagged it. :/

And I had a dude down the road always ready with a card to slap in my box so I could watch every channel for free.

I watched Bigger, Longer, and Uncut first, then Cruel Intentions. I don’t remember the movie, but I was way into the actresses. Good god Sarah Michelle Gellar and Reese Witherspoon really made my 14 year old brain short out bad. I can’t remember a single thing, seriously, but I watched it like 30 times.

Mine was a cam recording of Scary Movie 2. Horrible, horrible, horrible. Not the fault of the codec. I avoided cams after that and waited for the screeners.

But oh boy did I love my divx South Park episodes.

I probably haven’t watched a movie in 5 years.

Oh, well that I don’t know. That’s fun.

Chromium got opera bruh…I’m sorry.

As crazy as it is, Donald Trump appears to have been the single largest motivator to vote in American history. Either him or Covid.

He has definitely motivated me to vote twice, and for the rest of my life I won’t miss an election. Seriously. I had voted before, but I’d sit it out if I was too busy or I didn’t particularly like either candidate.

I have happily voted for Mr. or Ms. Not Trump twice. Now I also have to vote for Mr or Ms Not Influenced by Trump every chance I get too.

I mean, this is what I’d do.

I try hard to hold onto my moral compass and practice what I preach, but when it comes to my kids I probably could go hard. Especially if they were facing a future in a cage. If I had the power I just wouldn’t let it happen.

And they’re all going to be mad about it and make your misery even greater! Yaaaaay

I’m back. Ok, yeah. Not 30s but I wouldn’t think someone was lying to me if they said 40s and that’s still pretty good.

Hmm. I’m sure there’s a phone video out there. BRB.

She do look good for 59. Maybe I’m just getting old and old is looking younger, but if someone told me she was late 30s-mid 40s I would’ve believed it.