Tuesday, March 28, 2017

A most unusual TOS.

I'm going to be at a big VR "thing"tomorrow - so posts will likely be late and bitchy. Set your expectations low Yo.

The funny thing about it is that you had to agree to a ToS where you accept you could get hurt. Which was unusual, but not a biggie. Then the TOS had an even bigger disclosure saying that they don't tolerate creepers. So I'm not sure if they are demo'ing porn there or what. Because it literally was a page and a half about how not to be a creeper. I literally don't understand what else could bring out that kind of creeperism warning.

Monday, March 27, 2017

I don't really get the democrats "win" on the healthcare repeal. Are they really banking on "we fought to get you to pay more"? There is a small part of me that is sort of happy Trump wasn't able to get it repealed yet. I think everyone who voted for Obama should be forced to stay on the "ACA" for all time. Let the whole thing burn like the surface of the sun.

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Same ol' song and tax dance.

Taxes burn a month of Sundays for me.  And Frank Dodd makes you want to go ballistic. Seriously. One bank send me a 4 page document (FRONT AND BACK) 8 pages total - to tell me I got 79 cents in interest. You just get drown in paperwork now. And I'm the queen of over documenting. All that stuff was suppose to make things easier, but most of it only made things worse.

They've made things that used to be simple tax issues into the most complicated shit on the planet. It's like they got together and asked - what is the most complicated way we can get people to report this stuff? Okay - let's do that. And while we are at it - flood them with senseless pages of documentation.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Today's Monet.



I'm not sure this is my favorite shot because it's over exposed. But it does it's best job of imitating a Monet. I don't think I could have done that if I'd tried. It's sort of a beautiful accident.

The drought hasn't been kind to daffodil hill in my city, So I had to go outside to get my bulb itch scratched. There's a bulb guy in San Jose who invites people out to his house. Which is where I got these.

Wild flower season is sort of starting late. We've gotten a lot of rain this year - so I'm not sure how it's gonna go. 2015 was the most amazing year we ever had. A full year before the drought ended. Here, here, here, and here. Though 2016 wasn't too much of a slouch.







I haven't posted any bikes in a while.



Motorcycles aren't my thing....... that much. They have to be really unusual in some way. It isn't to say that I don't find something beautiful every now and then. Like today. But I find bikes the most frustrating subjects of them all. The don't give you enough access to get the right angles. To get everything in, handlebars and everything, is difficult. Almost everything else in the shot distracts from the beauty of the bike. They aren't well lit. There's people. It all just sucks. But I did find these designs interesting - so here ya go.





Friday, March 24, 2017

I guess I'm ~that~ girl now.

Some guy managed to wreck his Mercedes right in front of me on the freeway. He went to pass me in the carpool lane and must have hit some water and before I knew it he was cross three lanes trying to crawl under a semi. From the side.

The first thing the cop said to me was - how fast were you doing? Because of course he wanted to get that guy for speeding. And maybe he was, who am ~I~ to judge speed. I kept telling the cop I didn't think he was going that fast. Because ya know - I'm trying to do that guy a solid. He's already totaled his Mercedes. The last thing he needs is an excessive speed charge.

I wasn't technically lying because I didn't really know how fast I was going and told the cop that. But even if he had been, I realized in that moment I might lie in the future. As long as no one dies. So yeah. That is who I am now, I guess.

In other news - Silicon Valley still doesn't have anything to entertain me. Which means I can't entertain you. I am fully shocked at how many articles I read about IOT, yet I see none of this crap at shows. I'm starting to think this stuff doesn't exist. At least with vaporware they build some kind of thing to fool you into thinking it exists.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

I always feel slightly offended when people think I'm a crazy cat lady.

In my head I'm always like - no, no - I'm a completely sane bunny lady! See my hair?! Not crazy. Crazy cat ladies always have crazy hair.

Me checking out at the supermarket with two things of wheat grass.

Checker - is this for your kitty?

I sort of look at her. No. Bunnies I reply. But, do people only buy these for their pets? Because all the stores have fabulous grass. I can never figure out who buys it, because I'm buying for my pet.

Her - well, sometimes people juice it - but our town doesn't really have "those" people. We do have pet people though. Which made me laugh.

As I got out to the car I realized she also pegged me for not being a juice person. Mr S.'s rein of bread terror is starting to make me a little doughey though. Thank goodness it's summer so I can work that crap off.
Boy, the dollar is sure acting like inflation is knocking on heavens door.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Ratrod Wednesday.



Ran across this build in progress in my old hood and had to stop.





Tuesday, March 21, 2017

I get a certain amount of writers block when I get overwhelmed. And I've never figured out how to get past it. You just have to ride the wave like I do. Usually I come up with something interesting after a while.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

Though I walk through the valley of taxes - I will fear no evil. I hope.

Sad-urday.



While trying to find ways to procrastinate my taxes, we popped into Fry's electronics. And I'm pretty sure they were trying to give a not so subtle hint to men. Your Grizzly Adams days are over. Clean that shit up. And lose a few pounds.

Seriously, they had more beard trimmers than phones and hair dryers combined!

Also, when Fry's starts selling weird stuff - the economy is usually have a bit of a struggle. just sayin'. What is this - an electronics store or a gym?



Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The perfect conditions are forming.

It seems like a lot of people think the Fed should not have raised today because the economy is still very weak. And I agree with that. However.....

Inflation is too much money chasing too few products or services. And that is going to trigger very soon. Believe me. Obama printed so much money it doubled the national debt. The largest stimulus in history. But most of that money never entered the stream because of regulation, and frankly every single thing he did financially scared the shit out everyone. Everyone scooped up that money and essentially buried it in their back yard.

I always said that one day - that money is going to see light. Trump is going to be less hard on the banks, so they will dig some out, and it's going to work down the line like that.

Next, more businesses had been dying that were being created. That will most assuredly reverse.

And then, while only a small sample - when the gardener who takes care of my rental tells me he can't find anyone to work for him - I start watching to see if we truly are at full employment. His last guy left to go work in a warehouse.

Finally. Housing. I read just this week that we are under building 700,000 units a year to keep up with population increases. That is a ton of units.  That's going to create inflation right there. I laugh every time I think about the "eco bubblers". They are going to be waiting a while for that to pop. I doubt I will ever see that again in my lifetime. You have to create such a stampede that even people who can afford their houses give them up anyway because of the media reports telling them their house would never be what it was worth in their lifetime. Even I thought about giving up my stuff, and I'm the hardest to push out of that market.

I think inflation could catch hold very easily because frankly - there is a lot of pent up demand primed. People never stop wanting to buy stuff. The only thing that stops them is their ability to buy.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Govt weed is worse than govt cheese!



Mr S tells me - you have to see this article about government weed. Mind you Mr S. has tried weed exactly twice. All the knowledge of this subject he has is pretty much from me. He was a fairly straight laced kinda guy when we met. I've corrupted him. Some day I will tell you the story about how I gave him edibles and he freaking got so sick I thought I was going to have to take him to the hospital. This was before it was legal. I'd never seen anyone get sick like that. I was like eat something, or go to sleep. But seriously, I was sure I was going to jail that night. He was on the floor sick.

Anyway. I look at the picture and immediately say - OMG. That's worse than Mexican weed! You used to hear about people getting government weed but it was already pre-rolled. So you never saw what it looked like. I can't believe that's what they were getting.

He says - that's why I sent it to you. Then he was like - what?

Me - Back in the day - on the news you'd see stories about people who got government weed. I'd always think, damn - how do you get into that program? But the weed was already pre-rolled.

As a side note - I've actually had government cheese which is why this is even funnier. My grandmother was on welfare her whole life. It used to come in huge blocks. And you couldn't slice it. Every time you did it would just break into crumbles.

It would be funny if they said ~ keep it.

Pirates hijack oil tanker off Somalia coast and demand ransom.

The world is still floating on oil. I don't understand why the prices have risen again while we are very near an all time high again at Cushing. I know the summer blend. Yada yada yada. But the dollar is still very strong. The pirates better sell this stuff before the price goes lower.

The media is getting on my last nerve.

I have a girlfriend who is paying more for the health care penalty than she pays for her own care! And she has one of those bubble babies who is allergic to everything. And she's a single mother! How is that fair?

The stupid questions the media poses about this subject makes my head spin spin off.

You better pray more malls die.



I hadn't been out to Hayward in a while. It's an sort of an industrial city so I really only go out there when I need floors or some kind of home improvement thing. But when I was out there this weekend I was super happy to see at least two of my points proven.

The first? For possibly three years now I've been talking about how simply astonished I was with the places things are being built. All the easy land is gone. The only land left is by the railroad tracks, and at at one point I even joked that they were putting apartments up inside the cloverleaf of freeways. And as you can see from this photo, I wasn't too far from being dramatic. That my friends is a freeway off ramp.

The second? This used to be an old mall. The anchor store used to be a Mervyns. And finally after all these years it's being absorbed. This is what is going to happen to Sears and JcPenny, and all the rest of the dinosaur stores. And we are going to be completely fine. Because we need housing! If people think that housing is expensive now...... you haven't seen anything yet. Over the past couple of years developers rolled in and bought up most of the easy land. Now things are going to get melt your face off expensive. If you thought the housing boom was crazy. Just wait. We have been under building for at least twice the recessionary average. Here go hell come. Mark my words.

I'm not sure if they are sticking stores in down below or garages. But if it turns out to be stores I'm hitting the trifecta.

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Trike drifting?



Notice the back wheels are smooth like a babies butt. So you have no traction. The point is to get you to fishtail.

I paid my traffic fine today so I'd say I'm a notorious speeder now. 900 bucks thank you very much. It was a lot funner to speed when I didn't realize how painful it was. And honestly, I like dealing with the IRS way better than the police. If the IRS is mad at me, they will send me a bunch of  letters telling me they are mildly irritated and how to fix it. The police however don't send you shit. They are like - you've got a ticket - figure it out. Seriously before this, when people said they had a warrant and didn't know - I thought that was bullshit. After ? I think it's completely likely that happens a lot more than you know.

But, it could have been worse. My Better Call Saul ticket lawyer got me only one point instead of two. So presumably, the price could have been twice as much. Not counting the insurance bloodbath. You guys now the story.

Now I'm trying to find a healthier less expensive outlet for my problem. And I ran across trike drifting which I didn't know was a thing. But we decided to try it today.

These were electric, and electric bikes are pretty peppy I have to tell you. These go about 25mph. Instant on. It's a lot funner than it looks. I'm going to put some videos at the end because some of these builds are pretty awesome. Watch them.






Thursday, March 09, 2017

Wednesday, March 08, 2017

Last night I turn to Mr S. and say - there isn't much going on in the Valley right now, but I do enjoy seeing them all sue each other lately.

He sort of looks at me confused. 

Me - Throughout the recession everything was "open source" (which is my code for not making money). If they are suing each other - they must believe they have something to protect. To me it feels like the Valley is gaining a shadow pulse. When they aren't suing each other - there isn't anything coming out of this place. It's part of the cycle.

Obama Kush of course.

I was at a defense conference today. Because that is my jam. And it happened to be about five blocks from the dispensary I go to so I figured I should stop by. Why not? This is legal now. I can talk about it.

So, I place my order and the guy comes back and says he has a few things he wants to show me. One of them is Obama Kush.

Me - but what if it doesn't get me that high?

He just kinda looks at me. Then says -  well that's why it's called Obama Kush. After you smoke it you don't feel like doing anything. So I begrudgingly buy the smallest amount I can. It can't be worse than cheese weed. Likely it's all talk and no action though.

Tuesday, March 07, 2017

Self driving is super exciting right now.



I have to admit, I don't know much about this company - they just popped on my radar today. So I'm not sure how I feel about them yet. But I have to admit - it's an interesting premise. A remote controlled self driving truck. On the highway it will be self driving, and then a person takes over for the last mile in and out.  Starsky Robotics home.

"One peculiarity of self-driving technology is that, while automakers proudly brag about investing billions to catch up with Silicon Valley’s efforts, truck manufacturers have been fairly quiet, if not downright reluctant. That's because the politics of the trucking industry, one of the largest employers in the United States, is a minefield even larger than that of the taxi industry. And you don’t need to be Travis Kalanick to know how badly Uber’s handled the latter.  Source.

I've never really understood Ubers' idea that people won't own cars anymore. I'm not sure who owns them. Assumably Uber. But the reason Uber is successful (I think) is because they don't have all the overhead that cab companies have. I.e - cars.

When you drive down any freeway these days - you can't help but notice how much traffic can be improved if trucks just had their own lane and followed each other until they have to peel off.  Right now there are trucks piled high in 3 or 4 lanes. You can barely see around them you get so packed in sometimes. If we aren't going to build new freeways - we need to get trucks to stay in one lane for the most part.
Zero Hedge didn't just read my blog...... did they? I mean, I'm pretty low traffic, so I'm not sure. But I thought it was interesting that not long after I posted my last article, a new post popped up over there about malls and how they are trying to attract a more "diverse"  clientele. Read: America's Desperate Mall Owners Turn To Grocers, Doctors & High Schools To Fill Empty Space.

Let them die already!

Some days I think if I read another story about what a tragedy it is that malls are dying - I'm going to freak out. Seriously - if Sears can bring down the economy we are effed.  I mean, think about it! I don't think I've bought anything there in 10 years. And it's the last place I think to go to when I need an appliance or anything else.  In case you were wondering, this post is brought to you by this hysterical article from Zero Hedge. But he isn't the only one making me roll my eyes by far.

Right now it feels like the world is filled with small people with small ideas and frankly everyone should be happy those malls are dying. They are prime real estate usually in the middle of town! Who even shops at Sears, or JcPenny anymore?  They are dinosaur brands. People are holding onto the past for no reason at all!

This is what is going to happen. They are going to doze those malls and put up mixed housing and shopping spaces. They started doing this in California about 10 years ago, and they actually appear to be wildly popular to live in. I didn't think they would be, but they are.

The world has changed, and most people don't want to spend much time in malls. They just want to park. Go to the ~one~ store that has the item they want and leave. We are a busy people now. And if Sears dies, no one is going to care one bit. Imagine how many smaller stores can fit into a Sears, and you can put housing on top. People seem to be completely happy with this configuration.

The faster these stores are put out of their misery, the better off the world will be. One could argue that Sears and JcPenny are sucking up resources that could be better used by new and fresh brands. You know - places people actually want to shop or maybe even eat.

Some of these malls today - the new anchor store is actually a restaurant.

Monday, March 06, 2017

Sunday, March 05, 2017

Thursday, March 02, 2017

I hope the IPO season gets better.

Silicon Valley is killing me right now. Seriously. Snapchat is about the most retarded IPO I've ever seen. I'm so tired of these companies that provide nothing to the economy.

These companies that only indulge vanity and make no money have to stop.

Hopefully some companies that make REAL things will go IPO this year. Like the lidar companies or SOMETHING. Because if all we've got is Snapchat type companies this blog is going to be surly. Super surly.

Last year I think we had less than 10 IPO's. The lowest since the depths of the recession! And I have to tell you, from the conferences I've been to so far this year - it's looking a little sketch. It's early though. Fingers crossed.

Wednesday, March 01, 2017

If this is true we are seriously effed.

Realtors: Crackdown on undocumented immigrants could affect housing market.

What does it say about a country that illegal aliens are propping up the housing industry? And don't get me wrong, during the housing bust - the stories I would hear from realtors about illegals buying houses and defaulting.... so I'm not saying it's a thing.

But if your economy is so screwed up that you have to count on illegals to prop up the market - I just have to shake my head.

Thankfully I doubt it's true because the media is complete idiots when it come to anything financial. Wouldn't that just make it slightly easier for Americans to buy a place? Isn't that what we want?

I guess that's acceptable now.

Anyone who reads this blog for more than two seconds knows I'm not a prude. Right? Even so, yesterday I was downright shocked to see a guy walking down the sidewalk in Fremont take out his junk and just start taking a piss. He didn't try to hide behind a tree, shrub, or even a light pole or anything. He just stops whips it out and lets go.

The odd thing was he looked too well dressed to be homeless. And he wasn't carrying enough stuff.

This is our life now. I guess.

I'm going to name him Boris.


Yes - you are getting traffic pictures. Seriously.



Yesterdays hell was apparently due to another pothole that was so bad it was down to the rebar. Here. 

I'd actually gotten stuck in it around 11am, so by the time I drove past it again at 4:00  told Mr S. the only way to get home was through Niles Canyon which thankfully is now back open after the storm. Which BTW is a totally changed drive. The creek runs along side the road and it used to be a very dark canyon drive. The rain filled creek scrubbed the area of trees and now you can see the creek almost the whole drive. Before you knew there was a creek out there, but you couldn't see it at all.

Up until a couple of days ago Niles Canyon was still shut and GPS didn't know, so it was still routing people through there. Mr S. has had two 3 hour commutes in the last week. Anyway.



It must have opened up early because at 9:30 the traffic was already looking like this. Which is very unusual to have the lanes that backed up in the direction going to the burbs. Usually inbound to Silicon Valley looks like that.



And then, traffic broke Waze. When they shut down several lanes Waze tries to take you on all sorts of routes. And because you don't know what the problem is, you can't tell weather you should trust it. Which BTW you shouldn't. People start getting all shades of shitty. This is someones neighborhood! And be cause people start becoming such dicks, they are all squeezed up tight so no one can cut in front of them. It's really madness. I knew they were working on the road so Mr S. and I stopped for burgers to hopefully let some of that clear out, and even the waitress was trying to figure out a way to get home. She'd already seen Waze.



We finally we able to get on this road. But the lane to get onto Niles Canyon was so clogged you couldn't even get into the lane to get on it. So Mr S. and I thought we would into Niles Canyon and attempt from another direction which was a huge mistake. The cars were backed up for probably two miles. We literally spent an hour driving in a one mile radius. I'm not even exaggerating.





Finally onto Niles Canyon. It would be so effing helpful if Google could give us a button to report lane closures. It really happens that often now that I can't believe there is a report pothole notifier but not a lane closed notifier.



"The Fremont Police Department said via Twitter it was responding to traffic complaints throughout the city because of the ensuing gridlock and asked motorists to "be patient and obey traffic laws."

I especially like that the article said this. My first feeling is to tell them to pound sand. Why don't they send out a Google alert to tell us that the effing freeway is shut down. Otherwise people wind up in all the neighborhoods with Waze trying to tell them they will save time. I mean, I drove by that crap, and I didn't know it was going to be closed for HOURS.