Annoyances and Grievances, 2026 - Part 1

So, I've been majorly sleep deprived lately, averaging about 4 hours sleep per night, over the last few weeks, and last night I only got 3.5 hours sleep. Ideally I like to stay up late and have a leisurely start to the morning, waking up whenever I feel like it and reading in bed for at least an hour before starting my day. But now I'm on a new schedule, one of the major freelance gigs I do that currently makes up more than 60 percent of my income is only available with an early morning start time and is all over by the early afternoon. If you snooze you lose, and I have snoozed multiple times, but cannot afford to snooze any longer.

I have to say, as a night owl who has always gravitated to second shift jobs or jobs that start no earlier than 10 o'clock in the morning, as much as I hate to wake up earlier, it's very nice to be all finished working in the early afternoon, because that's the time I like to be outside experiencing nature, but at the same time, I like to stay up late, so it's just a daily struggle regardless, I'm getting up early and staying up late, and am not feeling all that great. And, because I've been so sleep deprived lately I made a careless mistake. 

I ride a bicycle as my primary method of transportation, and I have a decent bike. It's not new, but I've taken very good care of it, and if I had to replace it today, with something equivalent to what I have, including upgraded seat, tires, pedals, racks, etc. It would cost me at least $1500.00 USD to replace it, and that's on the low end. So, I use good locks, and more than one, even have an alarm. 

Anyway, because I was so sleep deprived I made the careless mistake of forgetting one of my secondary U-locks in the shopping cart next to the bike rack outside the store I was shopping at that day. Of course when I discovered the mistake and went back there was no sign of it and none of the employees knew anything, even the cart attendant who was like right there retrieving carts the day it happened. The guy looked normal, young, white, light skin, blond hair and blue eyes, early 20s, athletic looking but sensitive, and when I spoke to him about it, explaining what happened and asking for assistance, he seemed completely retarded. It was a shock, because he didn't look retarded at all, but he could barely formulate a complete sentence. It was very shocking. I felt like I was a live action role-playing character in the movie Idiocracy, where the dumb people who are good at mindlessly obeying authority, no matter who they are, get promoted, and everyone else suffers the fools and is treated like a second class citizen and a complete moron who better get with the program or die. 

Anyway, so now I only have one primary U-lock, which used to be the best but no longer is, and some cable locks, which really are only for accessories, and maybe your front wheel, and is not something to secure your bike with. So, I have to get a new lock. I've been researching the subject extensively and it appears that you can't  get a good lock for less than $200 dollars these days and the best is closer to $400. And you need more than one. So minimum $400 investment. 

This is what I'm currently looking at, it's a grinder resistant Hiplock:

But then I realized, WTF, my lock will be so good that they might as well just cut through the bike rack, and they probably will, because the bike rack will then become the weakest link. 

It's so disconcerting. I never really thought about that vulnerability before, it's something that can be defeated with a $10 hacksaw. So, it just means having to have multiple locks, and at this rate I may end up becoming like Pee Wee Herman, and carrying locks that either weigh much more, or cost much more than my actual bike, and then it's getting to be a bit ridiculous. The technology needs to advance, I'm thinking psychic force field and more sophisticated alarm system and harsher laws against bike thieves. For now I will only be shopping at stores with security guards and maybe going back to grocery delivery. 

April Fool's Day

So, yeah, just so you know I'm probably going to delete my blog soon. I'll keep a copy of everything but I feel like I don't want to do this anymore. If anyone wants to stay in touch, or lurk from the background, the best place to do that would be following me on Goodreads, link is in the sidebar. You don't have to literally follow me, but if you're looking for book recommendations or you would like to know if I ever start a new blog, well most likely I'll post a link there. 

Anyway, I just want to share a spontaneous insight that just occurred to me a few moments ago. I was watching this video on YouTube, and here's the screen shot.

 

Does that guy look 21 years old to you? Because to me he looks a lot older, definitely over 30, and probably over 40. Actually, I showed my mother a picture of that guy from a different clip, and asked her how old she thought he was, and thought he looked like he was in his 70s. Well, personally I don't think he looks that old, but he definitely looks older than 21, and he has bad skin, and am thinking he must eat a lot of pork and a lot of junk food.

It occurred to me that it could be AI generated. Now, I didn't examine it with the magnifying lens, but just so you know the level of sophistication for AI generated videos is getting better, the good ones, the highly polished ones aren't going to be showing people with six fingers and three legs. No, the good ones look very realistic, unless you zoom in, and if you've got a good eye that's where you may notice things out of place.  

Anyway, the spontaneous insight occurred to me while watching this YouTube video, that maybe the primary audience for developing photorealistic AI generated videos as a consumer product is primarily the wealthy class, specifically as a means to achieve the appearance of immortality. For instance, maybe Mr. Joe Schmo who has plenty of money in the bank but has a deteriorating body wants to be a sailor, he wants to live out his dream of being Robert Redford in the movie All is Lost. Well, AI can make this happen. Maybe this dude above is actually some wealthy old man who is too old to learn to sail, so instead he has an image created in his likeness to go on all sorts of adventures at sea, and he gets to be the hero in his own movie, compliments of AI.

So, yeah, maybe AI, beyond its utilitarian function of social control, mass surveillance,  and military application, is being sold as a designer drug for the wealthy elite, as a sort of virtual reality simulation occurring outside of themselves on a screen, in a movie or a game, or any other digital format.

The Genocide of Trees

These old ones that dwell upon us, who live for 100 to 1000 years,  much like the ancient Saguaro cactus. Who has forgotten the memory of the Sycamore tree, the glorious white barked tree that holds the mystery of the old world, much like a weeping willow? 

Well, this apartment complex nearby where I live, just chopped down all their fucking trees. We're talking trees that are like over 100 years old, over a dozen of them, and there was nothing wrong with them. I wonder why?

Well, apparently the people here in this city in which I live are at war against the trees, but really most of the common people are completely unaware of it, because they are asleep and cannot be held accountable for their incompetence, because they are completely out of their minds. Meanwhile the real perpetrators are invisible, and act very much like foreign diplomats with international immunity.

The travesty has happened. You can call it a genocide, a massacre of Ancient Wisdom, like Avatar, all the trees are connected, and these were old trees all killed at the same time. That's what it is, and I am probably one the very few people here who have noticed that it is happening. 

These are some pictures from an apartment complex that I walk by sometimes. I don't live there but I walk by there and it use to to be very nice, a park like atmosphere, full of well established sycamore trees, but for some reason the apartment complex decided to chop them all down within the last two weeks, destroying perfectly healthy Sycamore trees that have been here for more than a hundred years. 

So, I walked around and photographed the tree stumps. I'm using a generic camera, so if things look a little weird, that's why. I probably should have gotten a Go Pro. I also wish I would have gotten a good Nikon or Cannon camera with extended telephoto lens, but I've completely run out of money now, so making the best of what I have. 

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

10)

)

11)

12)

13)

This final picture of myself, you must understand, is not a hunter posing in front of a trophy kill, but rather of an investigative journalist attending a funeral, exposing the crime of illegal poaching of an endangered species. It is not a time of celebration, but a time of mourning.

Journeys Out of the Body

So, I started reading this book that's been on my radar for a few years now, about astral travel and out of body experiences. It's called "Journeys Out of the Body" by Robert A. Malone. 

Its primary thesis is that every living human being, besides having a physical body, also has a second non-material body, existing in the ethereal dimension of dreams. When you go to sleep, sometimes you are not just dreaming, you are actually traveling to real places in your sleep. Meaning, it's not imaginary, but is quite real. Except that when you travel this way you're like a ghost, and most people can't see you, but at the same time you might also see and interact with dead people, and with non-human entities as well. Also, when you go to sleep and travel outside of your body, you may travel to other planets and other dimensions, and may even travel backwards and forwards in time.

Reading this book reminded me of myself as a teenager in the 1990s, and how at the time I was obsessed with supernatural phenomena, ESP, time travel, parallel universes, the quest for immortality, and the ascension into higher realms and higher states of consciousness. I remember being 14 years old and discovering the authors Hermann Hesse and Carlos Castaneda, and the subjects of astral projection, lucid dreaming, and shamanism.

I haven't really thought about it for awhile, but there was a time in my youth in which I was a serious seeker. But somehow the responsibilities of adulthood have caused me to forget. Anyway, I'm reading this book, which narrates events that happened in my grandparents era, that of the 1940s to 1960s, about a man documenting the process of experimenting with astral travel to other dimensions in time and space. 

I woke up this morning too early. Like I'd been asleep for less than four hours, but I couldn't get back to sleep, so I read my book for a few minutes, and then shortly later went back to sleep, in which I dreamt of speaking face to face with an elderly white bald man without eyes, but having scars where the eyes should be, and all that existed to see was a small red slot over a scarred eye socket in which I stared intently into. I communicated with this man briefly, in which he told me that he knew the secrets for traveling to other worlds, and asked if I was there to learn them. 

I woke up, having no memory of anything else, but I think it will be something that I will explore further.

Synchronicity in Real Time

So, over the years I've been a dabbler in divination, and have consulted the tarot cards and the I Ching, multiple times in my life, though I very rarely ever use it now.

I haven't done an I Ching reading in probably like 20 years, and have only consulted the tarot cards like four or five times in the past 10 years, so it's a relatively rare event.

Anyway, tonight I decided to do a reading for myself, but this reading was completely different than any reading I've ever done before. 

Ordinarily when giving readings for myself I would shuffle the deck of cards and deal the cards face down, one at a time: The first card representing the past, the second card representing the present, and the third card representing the future. 

The way this time differed is that instead of pulling a random card and then putting it face down and flipping it over, this time I kept shuffling the deck in my hands and then spreading the cards out in my hand like a fan, where all the cards were face down until a card revealed itself to me. Literally I would find a card face up, when all the others were face down. This was not premeditated. I've never done this before. And it worked. Between each draw I shuffled again with all cards to the best of my knowledge being face down. And all three cards turned up in this divination. 

The three cards were: The Knight of Cups, representing the past, and the Moon, representing the present, and the Ace of Pentacles representing the future. 

Prior to this, a few hours ago, I was having a conversation with someone, talking about living in a small apartment with a cat, and that having a bunk bed might be a good idea, you know, you sleep down below and your cat has a cat tree to perch in above. 

This caused a whole chain of events and associations in my mind. I remembered a close friend of mine from middle school, a boy, who was probably the smartest and highest IQ person I've ever known in my life. He was very gifted, he had an ant farm and played table top dungeons and dragons, and probably could have been a member of Mensa. I mean, I'm smart, but you know, I'm not a rocket scientist, if you know what I mean, but this guy was gifted in that way. 

I met him around 5th and 6th grade. He had a bunk bed, because he shared a room with his older brother. 

Anyway, I hadn't really thought of him in a few years, but because I was talking about bunk beds it triggered a memory in my mind of my old friend. So I Googled him and find an obituary associated with his name. Apparently his dad died like a few days ago, suddenly and unexpectedly. I mean how weird is that? Had I not been talking about bunk beds, I never would have even thought to look my friend up.

That's like the ultimate synchronicity right there. Anyway, this has reawakened a whole series of memories, and I could probably write thousands of pages about my relationship with my friend, as well as my childhood and teenage years, but I won't be doing that here. 

The Snake Hisses

I want to tell you a story right now, based on real world events. 

This is going back like 30 years ago. Okay, I hope that doesn't make me seem really old, but it is what it is. 

Anyway, as I've said before, though maybe not here, many of my friends and teachers and classmates growing up were Jewish.

This is way before I became aware of the Jewish Question. 

Back then I was taught to believe that the Jews were an oppressed people. But I remember speaking to my High School homeroom teacher one day, a Brooklyn Jew with a PhD in Physics, and we got into a disagreement about oppressed people, because I was on a feminist kick at the time, and, anyway, I remember pointing out to him, that it's weird that Jews are so oppressed and yet they are so successful. 

He smiled and nodded in agreement.

He wasn't going to debate me after that. I was now one of them, or so I thought. 

Anyway, he was a religiously observant Jew, who attended Synagogue on a regular basis. At the time I was really into books, I still am, but back then it was new to me, and so I was all Gung Ho about it. I was interested in linguistics, ancient languages, anthropology, and archeology. My teacher, my homeroom teacher, Mr. Ph.D. in Physics, University of Berkeley 1960 something, told me one day that he had access to a large amount of Jewish Torahs that they were trying to dispose of in a graceful manner. 

I said I'd love to have one. He said something like that as a teacher in a public school that he could not give me this book because it is religious and they were not allowed to promote any sort of religious literature. Well, I convinced him to give it to me. It was really cool, it was in English, Greek, and Hebrew. It had all those languages. 

Anyway, he said that it was a Sacred Text and that he was a caretaker of it, and that he was entrusting it to me to borrow it and to take good care of it as a gesture of goodwill. 

Okay, fast forward a couple year's later. I have a garage sale. I sell some books, the Jewish Torah is one of them. Somehow my teacher comes to the garage sale, takes the book without paying for it, gives me a dirty look, as if expressing that I've betrayed him. I remember apologizing, but it was to no avail. Looking back on it now I can honestly say that at the time I had simply forgotten the agreement, or didn't think he meant it. Had it happened now I would have kept the book. I never would have tried to sell it.

Yeah, this teacher, the Jew from Brooklyn, who graduated from UC Berkeley with a PHD in Physics, eventually ended up becoming a transgender woman.  

Well, isn't that special?

How I Spent My Day Today

I thought it was the first day of Spring today, but I must have been confused, because I guess it was a couple of days ago. 

Anyway, since I have managed to continue working from home, at least for a bit, let's hope it lasts, this time as an independent contractor, I'm able to pretty much work whenever I feel like it, and take my breaks outside as I see fit, enjoying the moments when it is quiet outside and my annoying neighbors are not around. 

It's kind of a less than ideal atmosphere, for multiple reasons, but it's not all bad. For example, there is a large and very old tree right across the parking lot from where I live, which is the seasonal home of hawks and ravens and owls, which are always welcome company. 

I also had a hummingbird almost land on me today, and it hovered in front of me, completely surprising me, where it seemed to be looking directly at me for a moment, and then landed on a branch on the big tree directly behind me. 

I'm actually sitting on the curb of the parking lot where I live, because my apartment is completely in the shade, and I wanted to sit in the sun, and also be able to keep a close eye on my apartment.

Here's a picture from my mid-afternoon snack: 

I don't believe I am a super narcissistic person, but honestly this camera, which is an android phone, does not take very good self-portraits. 

I do realize I am getting up there in the years, but for some reason this phone distorts my face, causing some weird indentation on my nose, that doesn't really exist, and it's extremely annoying, to such an extent that I will probably either get an iPhone at some point, or a proper camera, just to be able to take pictures that more accurately reflect reality. 

Anyway, this is a great snack: Manzanilla olives, Swiss cheese, plum tomatoes, and herb crackers from Trader Joe's. I sit out here frequently throughout the day. Since I have complete control over the time I spend working, I can work for an hour, sit outside for an hour, and do whatever I see fit. 

It felt pretty warm today, though, not so much the ambient air temperature, but more so the intensity of the sun, the UV index, it felt noticeably different than just a couple days ago. So, pretty soon I won't be sitting in the sun anymore. 

Being from a cold northern climate originally, and now living close to the Mexican border, I can honestly tell you that when I was up north, especially in the Winter time and Spring, that when you get sunny days up there, even though it's cold, sitting in the sun is much more enjoyable when it is cooler outside. 

Here you just burn, and overheat, and that is not fun.